brick and mortar

today is day five of my internship at epa.  still developing the scope of my project, but i'm pretty excited to be diving into the world of cow poop :)

 

i had contrasting end-of-day meetings yesterday:

• exhibit a: two hbs entreprenuers fished for funding from a group of epa folks.  they told us -- they have technology, strong partnerships with utilities & dairies, and construction is 95% complete.  they'd met with stakeholders and agencies ranging from regional air boards to the feds for many years.
  
• exhibit b: after, i had dinner with former colleagues. geeky, business-oriented consumer web startup types.  they brainstormed get rich quick schemes on the interwebs.

a lot of opportunism going on.  it was mind blowing how different (and how much harder) it is to form a brick and mortar business, especially in a highly regulated space.  as un-sexy as it is,  it's really cool that people try to build sustainable companies despite the easy money to be had on the internet.