Minnesota's innovators require many resources to be successful and a new entity, MOJO Minnesota, has been formed to thwart what the founders see as "an innovation crisis in Minnesota" and since "entrepreneurial advances and business revolutions thrive in a culture and community of risk and innovation."

The catalysts for MOJO Minnesota read like a "Who's Who" of successful entrepreneurs, innovators, investors and intellectual property experts such as Brad Lehrman, Ernest Grumbles, Kim Garretson, Mary Meehan, Tim Bachman, Rick Brimacomb, Andy Halper, Joy Lindsay, Damien Novak and Marti Nyman.

As they so engagingly point out, "Minnesota has amazing creative, technical and financial capital -- yet new business launches and exits are scarce [and] agitation is needed to promote a culture of risk and to support innovation on the path from launch to exit. … Minnesota needs business revolutionaries to:

• boost emerging business and technology models
• spark the innovation community; and
• promote use of risk capital."

The Minnov8 team met with the founders last week to talk about their vision and what's next. Here's a snippet of that conversation where Phil Wilson asks Brad and Ernest for an overview of MOJO Minnesota: