The Dingman Center was set up in 1986 at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in College Park. Its mission is to support entrepreneurship both among students in the university community there, and also to reach out to regional entrepreneurs. It hosts three entrepreneurs-in-residence and two “Senior Smith Scholars” to advise both students and local entrepreneurs, and it also offers mentoring and early stage capital networking. Epstein, a Smith MBA, worked as an IT consultant for American Management Systems, managed an e-commerce and web development firm, and with his brother and father created an angel-funded company that operated an Internet marketplace for temporary services. He started directing the Dingman Center a year and a half ago.

Bisnow on Business: This is truly open to anyone in the region?
Yes.

Of whom does it consist, and who or what is Dingman?
We have 20 people here or affiliated with us. That includes full-time and part-time staff, several entrepreneurs-in-residence and senior scholars, and about 10 MBA students specially selected to work with us. It was funded by Michael Dingman and the business school. He was the founder of Signal, which later merged with Allied, which was later sold to Honeywell. He gave us $2 million 20 years ago, and a subsequent $4 million, having made money through running operations in basic industries. He attended the University of Maryland, lives in the Bahamas now, but will be coming for the Center’s 20th anniversary on April 5.

Is there anything else like the Center in the region?
Nothing in the region I know of that is primarily practical, as we try to be, although some other places like Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology may have some similar elements as part of what they do. There are a number of entrepreneur centers located at universities around the country that are well regarded, but we are very possibly unique in that we focus primarily on starting and growing companies. The University of Maryland and the Robert Smith School of Business are cutting-edge in teaching entrepreneurship, but they are obviously focused on academics and research, although these activities are also supported by the Dingman Center led by Dr. Anil Gupta.

Why not consolidate the Dingman Center and the Smith Business School?
The Dingman Center is a part of the business school but we also like to create an environment that simulates a small startup. We like to keep the Center practically focused. We have a number of practitioners and students focused on building companies, as well other local entrepreneurs.

Who are your entrepreneurs-in-residence and senior fellows?
We currently have five. They come in once a week to work with students and companies. They help them refine their business models, improve their pitches to investors, figure out strategic issues in focusing their business and business development. We have a diverse team with deep experience. Mark Walsh, the founder of Vertical Net, is one; Adam Lehman, who was a senior vice president at AOL, is another. We also have John LaPides, who started a bottled water company; an inventor, Dan Goodman; and a private equity investor, Charles Heller.

Taking students first, how do you help them?
We help them come up with business ideas, present their ideas, and get them resources. We have a program called “Pitch Dingman,” which is open to anyone in the university community to come present their idea and we’ll help them get moving with the next steps.

And for non-university entrepreneurs?
For the early stage entrepreneurs in the region, we have a mentor program where they can come in and get matched with someone in the industry they’re working with, offer instruction in basic skill sets, and introduce them to potential investors.

Dingman is proud of something called the “ideation” process. I don’t even know how to pronounce that.
Long “i” as in idea. It means coming up with the right idea, and it is the process we use for venture creation. The key concept is to recognize trends in the marketplace, and put yourself at the front of the curve that capitalizes on the trend. We’ll ask, “What happens if the price doubles or gets cut in half, like oil? What sort of impact will that have on the marketplace? What new demand for what product might that create?” As these trends come to reality, the marketplace shifts to adjust, so we focus on recognizing trends.

How do you pick out the trends you analyze?
Actually, one thing I do is simply to read the Wall Street Journal left-hand news summary. So, for example, a couple weeks ago due to the Katrina news coverage we talked about what if insurers stopped insuring homes in flood plains – think about the migration of people from that area and what it would produce. Or think about how we have disaster recovery for information technology assets. What about for human assets? That is, tracking down all your employees and getting them paid during a disruption in service, or the needs for security after a disaster. We try to document trends and a couple months later we go back to see what happened.

Going back to “see what happened” sounds a little academic. But your focus is on getting these ideas to entrepreneurs to pursue?
Definitely. We have 40 projects going on right now, some are early stage, some are ongoing businesses. One is a shopping magazine called “Shop DC” that focuses on the market in D.C. The trend that we recognized is that baseball was coming to the city, and as we started exploring that trend, we realized that D.C. was actually 50% under-retailed compared to other major cities in the country. Once you realize huge opportunity for retail growth in the city, we asked what other services are necessary to support a retail culture. One of them was a very focused, localized shopping magazine that gives consumers information about where to find boutique consumer shops in the area. So we created that magazine, launched it in April, and the second issue came out in November. The MBA student who started it has graduated but is still involved in it.

How did you select that student, or any given student for one of these businesses?
It’s a self-selecting process to a large degree. 10 MBA students have scholarships to work at the Dingman Center, and some of them are tasked with starting companies. Also, the University of Maryland is a very fertile ground for entrepreneurship. As you know, Kevin Plank, who has just taken Under Armour public, was from the University of Maryland and got his start selling tee shirts out of his car to his football teammates. There are 40,000 to 50,000 students at the University and a good number of them are interested in getting experience as entrepreneurs. We want to make these opportunities known to the students, have them work on something initially as a project, and then as we get traction try to build a team around it and launch a business.

Did this student come up with the idea? What other ideas have people run with?
We worked with her to come up with it. We’ve also helped students develop a jewelry company that sells university-branded jewelry; a board game company that has just put out two games called “Cluzzle” and “Wits and Wagers,” a trivia casino game; a company doing software for that restaurant industry that we assisted in getting $75,000 in funding from the State of Maryland; “Hook and Ladder,” a beer company that’s up and running that won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival, and is now on tap in half a dozen restaurants in greater region.

Why not tech companies?
The student-run companies are not usually technology-oriented because typically we’re working with students who can recognize opportunities in the marketplace and come up with a product to fill that niche. However, the external companies we work with are primarily tech companies, because we feel they have a large potential for upside and we feel with our experience and networks can assist them with their growth. But we don’t have a bias one way or the other, as long as they have business models that make sense, and we feel can add value.

What kind of funding do you give student companies?
We have an evergreen fund for student-run initiatives. We might put in $3,000 or $10,000.

How do you decide on which external entrepreneurs to help?
We want to work with entrepreneurs who are focused and driven and are going to be successful whether we’re there to help them or not. Our mission is to help expedite their success. We believe what makes a business successful is the entrepreneur who’s driving it. We want to deal with people who have passion and discipline and can help lead a business.

Are they generally younger people?
Actually, we’re working with a company right now where the management team is all into their 50s, they’re very senior, and they’ve been successful in the business world, but haven’t started a company. We help them with introductions to resources and investors, help them create their pitch and decide which investors are most likely, focus them on critical success factors, and help them with strategic initiatives such as planning a rollout.

What resources are you referring to that you offer?
All the resources of the University of Maryland, including a tremendous faculty and our entrepreneurs-in-residence. Plus, a network of investors we’ve been working with for most of the past 20 years, and the resources of a top-20 business school, including 4,000- strong business school students who are interested to get practical experience with early- stage companies and are a great source of inexpensive labor to provide assistance with market research, competitive analysis, and financial modeling.

Do you have an overall philosophy you share with students or older people who want your help to try to screen good ideas?
Yes. We spend a lot of time coaching companies, and stress five steps for identifying good ideas and pitching them. First, have you figured out a problem to solve that has a point of pain – the difference between a nice-to-have and a need-to-have? Second, how big and addressable is the market for the idea? Third, what’s your specific solution and does it really solve the pain you’ve identified in an efficient manner? Fourth, who’s your management team – can they execute the idea? And finally, is it worth it? Will you be able to make money for yourself and your investors?

Ah, for both an entrepreneur and an interviewer, that’s the bottom line.  :)