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Eugene Buff

Greater Boston Area

Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP) & Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) with over twenty years of combined scientific (MD/PhD), consulting, technology transfer and management experience.

Specialties:
• Technology Scouting and Acquisitions
• Deal Making (Licensing Consulting)
• Market Analysis
• Technology Positioning and Marketing
• IP (Intellectual Property) Management and Valuation
• Open Innovation Consulting
• Due Diligence

$5.83/min

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17

17 Reviews

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New Business Development Open Innovation Technology Transfer Entrepreneurship Education Strategic Consulting International Business Start-up Consulting Biotechnology Intellectual Property Strategy Technology Scouting

Call me to talk about

Open Innovation & Technology Scouting

Workshop to define, rank and formulate your needs and problems. Global scouting, assessment, screening and partnership facilitation.

Mentorship and Advisement for Start-Ups

Brainstorming and guidance to assess and formulate mission statement, value proposition and target market(s). Preparation and training of/how to presentation for investors and partners. External business development support.

Technology or Business Assessment

A quick and 'dirty' or thorough analysis of value proposition, stage of development and intellectual property situation to assess viability of your project. Triage and comparative ranking. Go/NoGo decision.

Commercialization Assistance, Licensing.

Advisement on strategy and practical implementation of technology commercialization, licensing, partnership and sales of assets and intellectual property.

Answers 23
Reviews 17

Answers

Eugene Buff answered

How to create a venture partnership as a start-up with a larger company to create a product?

To start a conversation about possible partnership you need to identify some pressing problem your potential partner has and approach them with a solution to that problem. Win/win sounds too neutral... You need to really do something. That they can not do on their own but understand the necessity to do. All the details of "mutually beneficial collaboration" will come up during later negotiations.

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Start-ups

Collaboration

Business Strategy

Eugene Buff answered

What does a good advisor bring to the table for a startup?

There are of course different advisers... Technical (scientific) and business. One of the big add value from a good advisor is their name and connections in the field. That adds lots of credibility to a startup and help with discussions and negotiations.

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Startups

Advisor

Founder

Eugene Buff answered

How would you name a technology and innovation conference?

You are getting lots of advise and no name suggestions... :)
I will add to that. The thing to consider is who is going to be your intended audience? Are you planning to invite professionals to discuss issues and actionable topics - then do not worry about sexy name, but make sure you get the reputable people in the organizing committee and keynotes (I will be glad to discuss).
If you plan to make a 'political'/social event for the locals to get excited by the opportunities - then you do need a catchy name and a logo to draw attention. But still - the quality of the program and not the name will attract people. I am getting slots of invitations and info about meetings and innovation is a buzz word these days. So the first thing I look for is the topics, profile of the expected audience/attendees and who is scheduled to present.

The Transilvania name of course brings up something about "innovation in our blood" :)

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Naming

Branding & Identity

Creative Branding

Eugene Buff answered

For those startups within an incubator/accelerator, at what point should they begin to market themselves? Why?

I think it is almost too late... :(
How a startup even got into an incubator if they have not done some marketing? As soon as founders came up with an idea for a startup - they must go out and validate it on the market. Are they addressing any real needs on the market? Will they be able to do a right "job" for their intended end users? The answers could be changing through the process but they need to be asked constantly.

An incubator or accelerator is a perfect entity to complement startups lack of resources and bandwidth. They need to whip startups into getting out and provide mentoring and advisement on how to do it right and who to talk to.

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Marketing

Early-stage Startups

Product launch

Eugene Buff answered

If I am designing an e-commerce site for a new product that cannot be protected with a patent or copyright, how to I protect my concept from copycats?

There are other types of intellectual property protection beyond patent and copyright... But you might be better off just using your 'first to market' advantage. By definition copycats are not as good as the original and in a sense they could help you by highlighting your strengths. But you do need to make sure you are always ahead of them. With current apples of business they might outrun you and take over...

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Product Strategy

Eugene Buff answered

What is the best way to isolate a niche group to target as potential users of our iphone app?

I am sorry - I think it should work backwards: you identify your end users and their problems and then design the product and get back to them.... Otherwise it is an old problem on inventors making "solutions in search of the problem".

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Language Teaching

Mobile Marketing

Online Marketing

Eugene Buff answered

Are we in a tech bubble?

Depending on wht you mean by "tech". In a broader definition of technology - of course we are not! Technology is what moves the progress and it would not burst...
But if you mean the narrow understood IT obsession - it is clightly inflated. I am afraid people sometime forget that most of the Internet, social media and 'apps' are just the tools to accomplish something, to solve problems or 'do a job'.
In any case I think we are pretty safe for quite some time yet as not that many ventures turned up to be full of air so far (but if investors money will become more freely available - we will see more of those in the future).

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Entrepreneurship

Business Strategy

Financing

Eugene Buff answered

Wondering how to find a mentor that's correct for me?

Happy to bounce a few ideas... To find the right mentor you would need to try quite a few:)

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Entrepreneur

Social Media

Eugene Buff answered

What is the ROI threshold that angel investors typically consider a success?

5 to 10x are usually considered. As angels usually invest early they need to take into account high risk and high possibility of dilution.

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angel investing

Angel Investor

Eugene Buff answered

Mentoring in helping a company go from $20 to $50 mill annual revenues.

Glad to discuss as well. It is impossible to be theoretical on this topic - so please ask a specific question or raise an issue.

One quick comment though - company growth must be in the job description of all employees!
If you are the only one charged with this, you are in trouble!

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Management Consulting

Business Development

Mentoring

Eugene Buff answered

Term sheet is to be signed. In order to determine equity for my investors, what step-by-step approach for valuating the company would you recommend?

First of all - a 'reasonable' term or agreement is the one that is acceptable and interesting to both you and your investors. You are in it together!

In terms of valuation there are many formal and informal ways to do it. For a company with revenues 3x revenue is an acceptable rule of thumb. But this is just a starting point for discussion. You should also take into account all tangible and intangible assets and then discount for the risks that nothing will work out as planned....

As for the amount of equity to give away - it is not unusual if the first big investor takes 30-40% of an early company. The more advanced you are, the closer to revenue or to be profitable, the more expensive you are and less equity could be offered.

Sorry for the theoretical answer! But a generic one simply does not exist. I just tried to outlined things to be taken into account.

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Valuation

Private Equity

Fundraising

Reviews

Eugene combines outstanding networking, technical excellence with clear vision and interpersonal skills. He is clear on what the needs are for an organization and through his expert and extent network is able to find the partners with the right expertise at the right time. I look forward to keep collaborating with Eugene for many more years.

Jordi Rafols Source: LinkedIn

Eugene Buff has successfully executed more technology deals than most people have even started to think about. His clients list is truly global and I have seen him engaged in the US, Japan, Europe or Moscow in an equally professional manner. Eugene's past clients include the likes of P&G, Sony, and Philips. His projects have involved building innovation strategies, technology scouting, and deal making. Eugene's work sets him apart from the herd as it ends in actionable deals and recommendations for his clients. I’d recommend him for any project that requires the very best in IP Management, Technology Transfer, Licensing and Business Development. On top of it all he is a great guy.

Haggai Klorman-Eraqi Source: LinkedIn

Eugene is an action oriented professional with keen insight into management and commercialization of early stage discoveries. In addition he is an expert in the development of open innovation relationships and moves decisively to benefit his clients.

Nikki Borman Source: LinkedIn

Eugene is a very competent and responsible adviser and manager. He is dedicated to providing clients with the best possible outcome. He is also a tough negotiator, and I will always prefer to have him on my side of the negotiations table!

Gennaro Gama Source: LinkedIn

Eugene is a good friend. He is also a very capable leader and understands IP and technology licensing throughly. He is very well connected and respected in the industry. I've had the pleasure of working with Eugene for 10 years and hope I continue to work with him over the next 10.

Ben duPont Source: LinkedIn

I have worked with Eugene over the past three years to bring Open Innovation to Newell-Rubbermaid. Eugene is an expert in his field and has a world-wide network of technology contacts and vendors for us to evalute. He was very organized at managing, ranking and separating the massive responses to our technology searches. He has a great ability to match the our business needs with the proper technology that can be easily implemented into our business model.

Nina Frazier Source: LinkedIn

Eugene is a professional consultant in the field of technology scouting.
He has extremely strong medical background in addition to materials and chemicals.
His technical expertise with strategic mind has provided high value to our key clients in Asia in our Open Innovation projects.

Hideyuki Fujii Source: LinkedIn

Eugene has worked as a consultant for CRDF Global and helped us to conduct numerous workshops in the US and overseas (training programs for aspiring technology entrepreneurs). Eugene had performed many complex tasks and always received outstanding feedbacks. His skills are superb and handled all responsibilities with a high degree of professionalism.

Evgeniy Krasowski Source: LinkedIn

I had the pleasure to work with Eugene for a few years as we were creating and implementing a new set of services at yet2.com - technology scouting and acquisition. Eugene is one of the very few technology transfer professionals with great insights and expertise in these services, what we call "Open Innovation" today. Eugene is hard working, goal oriented and is well known and respected in the licensing community.

Pierre duPont Source: LinkedIn

Eugene possesses deep understanding of key technologies where we at P&G has searched for solutions. His opinions are objective and data based, which is important as we evaluate opportunities.

Mark Peterson Source: LinkedIn

Eugene is a solid results-oriented individual who is committed to getting a maximum outcome for clients.

Robert Hirsch Source: LinkedIn

Member since July 2013