Pit-stops

The race continues:

• I attended my first local inventors & entrepreneurs club meeting on Tuesday.
• The speaker referred me to an old friend of his, a professor at a university about 30-40 minutes north of me whose expertise is exactly those areas of [applied research field] which I most lack. We spoke on the phone for a while, and will be having lunch on Monday to discuss shop (and possible collaborations).
• Tuesday, I have lunch scheduled with a local college student who'll be partnering with me to prepare a complete business plan for my firm as his senior project over the next year.
• Tomorrow, I'll speak on the phone with a patent attorney.
• I have a morning meeting tentatively scheduled for Wednesday with another patent attorney.
• Tentatively, that afternoon, I'll be meeting with yet a third patent attorney (and his partner).
• Tomorrow, I'll also have a second talk with a grant writer (once he's gotten a chance to look over some materials I sent him today).
• I've registered to attend a regional entrepreneurs' conference next month.

Busy busy. Tomorrow, and over the next few days, I plan to work up a good narrative for the technology I'm developing, as a starting point for both the grant proposals and the patent description. I've got about a dozen separate documents that I've been nursing along over the past year or so, which cover different aspects of the work. I'm going to try to piece it all together, and clarify it.

This work is good, and exciting (if still daunting). I am so unaccustomed to being taken seriously. I have grown used to soft-pedaling my research ("well yeah, I do research, but I really love the classroom... I'd be just thrilled to teach your 101 and 102 sections... that'd be right dandy!"). I'm still a bit in awe of the level of support that has come to me, in such a short time.

There are state funds to help cover the costs of grant writing. I'll be talking with some local people next week as well, about additional state funds available to assist the startup of technology ventures. It's possible that I'll get help defraying the costs of a patent filing, as well as assistance to hire some programmers and others. It seems there are many people who are taking a vested interest in the success of my venture.

This is a world apart from the neglect I had grown accustomed to. And, you know what... I'm beginning to like it!