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Of the three primary areas of concern for technology startup companies -- resolving intellectual property issues, understanding the marketplace and how to best enter it, and developing an effective management team -- it is the latter that can be most troublesome to new innovators. 

That challenge requires a need for self introspection on the part of an inventor or company founder as it ultimately, alongside insufficient funding, is a fundamental cause of business failures. Every industry has critical success factors. Good business planning identifies these factors and then ties the qualifications of the management team back to a new company's needs. 

Experience in previous startup launches is golden. This is true even for those startups that have failed, so long as the lessons learned from an earlier failure can be well articulated.

An inventor or founder of a new technology product who is eager to see his or her invention commercialized ultimately must ask the $64,000-question: "Am I the one to lead this new startup company?" The answer to that question is best arrived at if the inventor can honestly admit that selling the new product is more important than the product itself. 

If he or she cannot admit that, the search for a new CEO had better start.

This is not to find fault with inventors, it is merely to acknowledge that running a business requires a substantially different set of skills than of an innovator or Chief Technology Officer. Where the CTO is concerned with validation and functionality of the product, the CEO concentrates on overall implementation and meeting the deliverables set by various investment entities. 

The CTO is concerned with building a successful prototype; the CEO wants to determine whether that prototype can be mass produced at a cost that is affordable to consumers. There is a tendency for some innovators to believe that once the product is created, the market will move to it. The individual responsible for implementation, on the other hand, is consumed with planning how to enter the market cheaply and effectively. 

The successful CEO is driven by the knowledge that how company employees are managed and how they perform is as important, if not more so, than the company's product itself.

Technology startups vary substantially in their personnel makeup at the initial stage of development. Some may be little more than one or two individuals who have developed potentially marketable IP, and who are immediately challenged with finding product validation funding. Others may be more advanced in their business planning and marketing efforts and are comprised of unpaid entrepreneurs with some minimal startup funds, and are figuring how to best spend  their early investment money. 

In either of these situations it is imperative to obtain business guidance or advice as soon as possible. If that business expertise doesn't exist "in-house" then it would behoove the startup group to establish a group of advisors who can deal with the all important legal, marketing, accounting, and strategic planning issues that confront new business ventures.

It is through strong business leadership that new startups can recognize the unique commercialization opportunities regardless of the economic environment. Today's recession, for example,  can be viewed as a good time for some startups: costs are lower, because of layoffs more talent is available, and with money being tighter there is no need to rush to investments, but in fact, more time to spend on competitor research and business and marketing plan development. 

Conversely, established companies already in the marketplace are likely to be hunkering down and cutting costs as opposed to trying to expand market share.

The true commercialization challenge for new companies is to find the right fit between management team capabilities and the success factor needs of the industry.