A few days back we talked about the different challenges of managing any startup through the different stages of development. And ended by noting that one of the encouraging signs for the cleantech sector is the development of a deeper pool of entrepreneurial talent (although it still needs to be much deeper -- please, jump in the pool, the water's warm and getting warmer). It was great, then, to validate this point this past week, by having the opportunity to speak at HBS, alongside Dhiraj Malkani of RockPort, to students who were interested in getting into the sector. It was a fun discussion, and I know Dhiraj and I both certainly appreciated the invitation to come meet some smart young businesspeople with many insightful questions. Another demonstration of how current and future managers are looking for ways to get involved in these industries. (Unfortunately, we were asked to follow directly after a plenary by Vinod Khosla, which is a pretty tough act to follow, and so after the standing-room-only crowd sat -- spilling out into the aisles and out of the classroom -- spell-bound for an hour, and then ran up en masse to shake Vinod's hand and have their pictures taken with him, it was pretty amusing to watch around 3/4 of the crowd get up and head right out the door before the next panel... But I digress.) Based on the questions that were asked, some of the students must have recently read Bill Aulet's thought-provoking column in Xconomy on the multi-dimensional challenges facing managers in cleantech enterprises in particular. Bill's point is that making a cleantech business a success will require many different skillsets -- knowledge of disparate technologies, understanding different markets, being able to work with a variety of large customers, plus the general entrepreneurial challenges we discussed earlier. Bill concludes that managerial talent capable of handling all these many challenges will be tough to find, and thus that managerial talent will remain a limiting growth factor for the sector. Contrast Bill's column with this other column that's been making the venture capital rounds lately, discussing the long-term shifts in IT and Web 2.0 investing. In the column (among some other interesting points worth digesting), the author makes the point that the barrier to entry for IT and web entrepreneurs is coming down quickly. "When starting a startup was expensive, you had to get the permission of investors to do it. Now the only threshold is courage." The author discusses the reduced technical needs to develop a new offering in that space, and how easy it is to "release a minimal version one quickly, then let the needs of the users determine what to do next." Not being an investor in that space, from an ignorant outsider's perspective it seems like an intriguing take on the future of that market. (Although it does raise important but unanswered questions about how any such startup could create defensibility against similar low-budget, low-barrier-to-entry competition -- and the implications for investors) But it's the contrast between the two messages that I wanted to highlight, and it really helps illustrate the point Bill is making. As Dhiraj and I told the HBS students, launching a successful industrial energy efficiency technology startup might require knowledge of software, hardware, machine-to-machine communications, industrial manufacturing equipment, manufacturing facility management, electric utilities and their billing patterns, energy usage analysis, proper structuring of business partnerships with larger firms, etc., etc., etc. And can you imagine throwing a "minimal version one" out there for such customers, in anything so mission-critical? Or throwing a "minimal version one" biofuel out into the market, untested? Bill's diagnosis of the challenge is spot-on, in recognizing that there is a multi-dimensional and deep knowledge requirement for successful entrepreneurship in cleantech. Where I would quibble with Bill is in his conclusion, that few managers will have the multi-dimensional skills to be able to rise to the challenge. Instead, what we're seeing is that it takes a village to build a world-class cleantech enterprise. It takes a strong management team, but not where any one manager has the complete skillset themselves -- one where the complete team has most of the necessary skillsets. And it requires a good syndicate of value-added investors who each bring their own areas of expertise to the Board room, as well as their networks of contacts for helping to round out the management team and business partnerships, to address any remaining gaps. Purposefully matched co-investors, for example, where one is bringing market expertise, another is bringing technical expertise, another is bringing regional presence, and all bring to bear their collective experiences with the general challenges of entrepreneurial growth. This, then, means management is much less of a limiting factor than Bill's column would suggest. The influx of strong entrepreneurial talent lacking specific domain expertise isn't a "sorely lacking" dynamic, but instead a really healthy thing for the sector, as long as this proven entrepreneurial talent is matched well with domain expertise from the rest of the Board and management team. But it also means that pulling together such a collaborative effort will require a lot of hard work and more inclusiveness. This helps explain why we're seeing more syndication in early-stage cleantech venture investing than is often seen in other sectors. It also provides a good model for thinking about building successful startup management teams in cleantech. And finally, it should be encouraging for any proven entrepreneurs who are eager to find ways to get involved in this sector.