Creation Services

Market Opportunity Assessments

The Opportunity Assessment Program is a pre-formation business service that provides entrepreneurs with an objective look at the opportunity they are looking to pursue. EIRs and MBA interns evaluate the current market situation and analyze how well the proposed product/service fills an unmet need in the marketplace. Evaluating a series of supporting criteria, such as competitive advantage, value creation and infrastructure needed to pursue the opportunity, the HTR team provides recommendations whether to go forward and pursue the business opportunity, or not.

Pre-seed Workshops

The pre-seed workshop is targeted at professor/researchers at RIT, UR, and Cornell Ag Tech Park. The intent is to help academic inventors to assess whether their invention is a possible business opportunity and whether they are entrepreneurial. Each pre-seed workshop has 6-9 inventors each of whom is assigned a team. The team will include a tech grad student or co-inventor, an MBA student, and an external coach.  Two EIRs serve as coaches at each event. This event is an intensive hands-on two day workshop.

Tech Commercialization

HTR assists commercialization efforts of inventors and intellectual property owners through technology infusion into existing companies and through new company starts. See Specialty Services for details.

Business Plan Workshops & Contest

The annual Rochester Regional Business Plan Contest encourages entrepreneurship and advances new, high-growth ventures in the Greater Rochester, New York Region. Five winners are selected to receive a customized business development and support package, including a cash award and in-kind services, to help grow their new ventures. A series of Business Plan writing workshops are offered as part of the competition. The Selection and Judging Committee relies on information provided in each company's Application Form, Executive Summary, Business Plan and Investor Presentation in determining the finalists. The finalists are then invited to present before a panel of judges at the Awards Ceremony. The Judges choose the contest winners based on both the written Business Plans and delivered Investor Presentations.

HTR Affiliate Program

The HTR Affiliate program supports Rochester-area start-up and emerging technology-based enterprises through connections to key resources. Through this 2-year program, entrepreneurs can increase their management knowledge, access excellent service providers, connect to academic and government resources, do entrepreneurial networking, and participate in ongoing HTR events such as the monthly HTR InfoBytes series. An Affiliate membership enables access to consulting services at preferred rates through HTR’s EIR’s and MBA interns.