Founders for 1776. When i sat dn withhem i started with what might be the most important question. With 97 of startups failing what are the key ingredients to be successful . Evan knew how to separate good ideas from great ideas, and asked him how he chose his initial startup. Ultimately this is about tilting businesses that have the potential to scale and create a lot of drive and impact. The first thing we are looking for is business momodels with the potential for high growth. That doesnt mean we are looking for lifestyle businesses consulting firms, nonprofits. It also means we are looking at big markets, businesses where the opportunity to really access those markets and grow is there. We are also looking foror the right mix of skills. A lot of the industries are involved. Having beeeen the social secretary has been good. It pbably helps if someone on your team is a doctor. Already using his skill of reading the marketplace and spotting a need. I should decide not to live i decided i didnt want to go to college. I was hanging out and i think i should have traveled around europe. And my girlfriend at the time was 57 at that point where he was putting money away to send her to colollege. Helping to support his parents. We got into a series of conversations about how generally or the Planning Solutions at the time where. We came up with the concept, i hacked the first version. Maybe we should show this to an investor. If i had five dollars to invest i wouldnt ask a kid at a kid at i high school to teach me how. I want to know how he got investors to take a chance on him. I dont know how to answer that. What would he say to other companies . I think one of the strengths i i was developing back then was how do you distillate bunch of stuff downo a clerestory . Being able to say y there are all the sorts of things going on, but fundamentally here is what is happening and heres what the Market Opportunity lies. That was invaluable when i was 19, valuable when i was 38. We worked with all of our startups on today and make sure we could take all this stuff and distilled down to a clear and simple story. She took a different path from evan. Grandma i actually did go to college. I started my First Venture out of necessity. We noticed an opportunity in the marketplace but was tired of the travel and idea that i was reearning Sales Commission every single year. It felt wrong to me. Butf i was going to invest that much time i wanted to have an ownership in equity. The thing i have always loved since they won has not been technology for its own sake but technology in what it can do. It i is an enabler for change. Early in my career that was working with general motors, helping them figure out what to do with the American Free trade agreement. They really think of how they changed the world. My startups all had that common i was onone of the top people at a health i. T. Fifirm. I started a k12 education space. I was one of the top people there. All of the clients were doing. We felt we could dramatically change the world. How you actually employ internet saving technology . How do we deploy things like Carbon Monoxide alarms to save lives . That same threat continues here. She had the entrepreneurial passion and success. When i think about my experience it certainly had magnificent success. It was a really great track record. The thread throughout all of my compies was tt being a successfulntrepreneur is where you are tied to living graphically. The potential customers that are around you, the number of other entrepreneurs in your r community. It becomes v very difficult to buildd a company if you are not in places like silicon valley. Increasingly it was s becoming impossible to not only create a condensed ecosystem traveling the country helping others. Now they are heroes. Back at ndc wasnt cool. What did donna see in the potential of d. C. That most others didnt . We are a government town. You can either look at that and see what is see it as not a government town. Or you can say lets just embrace that and turn it to our advantage. It turns out it is not such a bad thing when everys every major ceo comes throughere. The international community, all of the expertise that exists in the various agencies and organizations araround it, it t is an enormously rich community. We begin to minate on tha what if f we could actuallyy bring all of these people out of the swim lanes, help them to unrstand thehing they do every single day and is actualllly a gold mine to one of the startups in the community . Helped them underand that startups are happening outside of silicon valley. Y. They are tackling the same set of thihings would we are trying to solve. Turns out there are thoands of artups around the worldhe cacare just as deeplas y about king edution better. We will bring you much more of our interview next sunday, including which ideas hit it big and which ones cost them a little more. Stay tuned. When w weeturn,n,owdy you m make a northern v virgininia weatather virginia a andarehououse thugh the much our small busins spotlight is on a company that is maki susure big televevision business is not lost to new york or hollywood. It was 25 years in the making. At 7. 005 i dont thk we needo chase that. These gold miners are tv stars because of the discovery channel. They braved the cold and elents and pull millions of dollars out of the ground. They s sitit down to talk about their exploitsts on a show called the dirt. They are h here in a studiin fairfax county, virginia. , when you are dealing with talent like we have, gold rush gold miners, they are notot professional talent, they are gold m miners. They have their needs. This place accommodates. I have been designing the space of m head for 15 years. I kept track of everything that s bothering me. A labor of love for Northern Virginia couple. We addeded those to hohold a 53,000 pounds of the lighting grid, which is what it ways whwhen it is fully loaded. They saw the market for quality. There are six layerers of five 810 inch great wall. Inch drywall. You will realize you left the outside world behind you. Hehelicopters, no harleys, no lightning storm. There are several clients that have come in and said i cannot believe this is in Northern Virginia. They are amazed at the thoughtfulnessf the design of thisis space. This is designed to beat the clock. When you have a lot of people on salaries, beating the clock is valuable. Big clients a coming. We have been dealing with a lot of other studios in the area. We have gone to new york and done studios up there. Transporting our productioto new york is cost prohibitive. There is s denying in the years building and spending more money y they only came out ahead because of the sheer determination that their plan would wo. There were times when it wa incredibly horribly fficult. Really darark moments. When you look at what you have lefto finish thehe job and what it takes to make it happen. Your decisionmaki process has to be binary. You are either going to go through everything you get yourself to the level where you are futioning or packet all in and call everything a wash. Now there is this. The one thing i can do is hang the American Flag on the back of. I love that story. Our roroundtablele tells u us the really good news. We will share the impression ts week wewe have two insiders who know what is realllly going on in the region when it comes to the issues. Ts face it, there a are plenty of people weighing in. Also this week we will talk about the pule lines and the jobs outlook and the possibility y for bigg federal dollars area with so much to get toto lets get to our two guests. Venture capitalists, head of amplifier adventures. Reallgood numbers. Unployment numbers are up a little bit the most interesting tng is you are starting to see somee wage incncreases with middleclass jobs. I think it may be because of some changes in the oil market, which we prpredicted a couple of momonths ago. Overalall the economy is in goodod shape. The university has been waving a red flag. You think there are some optimism here. The first one is the Greater Washington region, there is still a lot of itallation insulation. They are not as bad as the stories that are coming out. T. Ybe in the last couple of years, maybe t outlook isnt as bright as it has been for the district o columbia or maryland. Jonhan, i do think k they have a point to be made that we have to kekeep diversifying. That isomething the board of trade has been emphasizings well. Now w this oppornity for a take cyber campus funded by the federal governnt. All see money in ciber p did it would be a federal government cyber campus. Explain why the president is proposing this when we have cyber command. Diversification is great. Your organization. The reason why the Cyber Initiative is so important is because it is no longer a governmental matter. Is this what that would be . I think it is essential for National Security and for our region. If it doeoccur here it will occur in silicon valley. We will lose opportunities for greaeat startups. Not virginia against maryland maryland against the district. My leadership regional cohesion, that is one of your big jobsbs. m going to segue to your take m a lot of the big competitors for jobs. Your takeo one of the big competitors. Ththe economy is in the dumps with the democrats. That is how he got elected. He is not shaking that off. The consistency is important. I do think it is important he is reaching out to the legislators on both sides of the aisle. He has put a heck of a team together. He has some allstars on that team. I do not think we will see the walls going up in maryland. He has already reached out and they havhad some good conversations with the mayor in washington and the governor in rginia. Do yowant to give the member a fit semester grade . E for effort. Them o to the races in d. C. She had a a rough start with the things she couldnt control. With snow decisions to a metro accident. The Business Community is t taking a reful look at how she is doing. I think were g going to se how she does with tech. I think being mayor of d. C. Is a hardob. I believshe is smart and surrounded herself with people that understand technology and buness. I am optimistic at how it is going to go. Do you want to give her a grade . The same, e for effort. Ththere were a couple of misstep by metro or the weather. You are not going toind a momore regional minded mayor. She worked in prince geoeorges montgomery county. She workeon the metro boards. She is as rional of a person as we have ever r seen. There will be back th our pop q quiz. Its going to be about the purple line. Therere wawas a bievent surrounding the purple line this week. You atnded and cohosted. It wawas reiteration of strong business supporfor the purple line. Candndidlyly it ishe silver line for maryland. This is where we see the connectition of cyber and research and biomedical all along the line of the purple line. If you can make the businesess case, and i think it needs to be remade to the new governor, if you make that Business Case i think he has an open mind. Purple line, backed, pushed by martin, derided by larryy hogan. And yet theres money for it. It is supposed to take placenn 2015. Lolots of blueprints and plans and businesses. Here is the pop quiz question. How do you rate thchances of the purple line . E . And whenen wilill it . Really when you look at the federal gornment t silver liline initially was not graded highly. The bususiness community worked to get the silver line e back on track. The federal government has rated the girll thats rated e purple line at the highest level. It will be delay potentially as six months. I didnt buy a house becau it was supposed to be on the path f the purple line. Larrhogan could make this a play to please his tea Party Conservative race, scrapap it,t, and move on. Howdy you rate the chances . Look at terry mcaululiffefe and obamacare. It didnt happen becauause of ideology. The reality is the purple line is more of a mass traffichan the silver line is. Hofully some body will say to m atat the end of the day y what matters is not posturing for the camera, whatatte is economomic delopment. You say goes forward as well. I cant predict it. Im soso glad didnt buy t house, butut im so glad you watched ththis week. Tune in next week. This week on Government Matters how do you advise the president on technology and innovation . For six months, megan smith has been doing that. Our exclusive interview with the nations chief technology officer. Agencies will be able to manage and show improvement Going Forward as it relates to reducing risk. The administration will whirl out a new Cyber Division to battle the rising tide of attacks. Compapanies want is a targeted message. After a key acquisition, the coununcil is sitting pretty. Overnment matters starts right now. F from abc 7 and news channel 8, this is Government Matters