Originally published on Teknovation.biz
By: Tom Ballard, Chief Alliance Officer, PYA
“The numbers have to be there, and they also have to like you,” Shawn Carson says in succinctly capturing the results of the research undertaken on investment strategies for his recently completed dissertation at the University of Tennessee (UT).
The long-time player in the Knoxville region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem will share the results of his research at tonight’s “Innov865 Investor Series” forum, then moderate a panel discussion about the topic. The panel will feature Tony Lettich of The Angel Roundtable, John Morris of The Lighthouse Fund, Grady Vanderhoofven of Three Roots Capital, and Ken Woody of Innova Memphis.
Carson is well-known across East Tennessee for his skills as a workshop leader and effective communicator. As such, it was only natural that the soft-spoken Lecturer in UT Knoxville’s Haslam College of Business would decide to pursue his doctorate. And, it should come as no surprise that his previous ties to the now defunct Technology 2020 and current additional role at Three Roots Capital would lead him to a dissertation topic based on the decision-making process used by angel and venture investors.
“I’ve been studying entrepreneurial risk for a while,” Carson told us in an interview ahead of the forum. We wanted to better understand the methodology that he used and the results that he uncovered.
“Entrepreneurs take risks, investors avoid risks,” Carson explained. “I wanted to know if there was a way to quantify risks beyond the ‘Big 4’ – execution, market, technology, and funding.”
The short answer is “yes,” but it took some work. Carson described his challenge as “developing a process that would get people to explain their individual risk factors in a way I could quantify.” To do it, he selected the Delphi Method developed in the 1950’s to achieve consensus while avoiding biases of those surveyed.