CU Entrepreneur of the Year helps refute stereotypes during his talk

By Linda Myers

Jeffrey Parker, who was honored on campus, Oct. 11 and 12, as Cornell's Entrepreneur of the Year, spoke to a full crowd in Statler Auditorium last Friday about what it takes to launch a successful enterprise. Parker's current company, Corporate Communications Broadcast Network (CCBN), harnesses the Internet to help companies manage and distribute key information to their investors.

Jeffrey Parker, left, receives Cornell's Entrepreneur of the Year award from President Hunter Rawlings, Oct. 12, in Statler Auditorium. John Reis Photography

Parker disproved the notion that most achieving entrepreneurs began as kids whose families encouraged them to start a lemonade stand or other small-change venture. He cited a survey of successful entrepreneurs that showed 67 percent did not grow up in entrepreneurial households. He debunked the myth that most entrepreneurs stumbled onto their success, asserting 70 percent had years of experience and exposure before starting their own businesses. He said that while successful entrepreneurs do take risks, they rarely take unreasonable ones. And he overturned the belief that all you need is a phenomenal idea to be an entrepreneurial success.

Of the successful entrepreneurs surveyed, only 12 percent began with a "great idea," said Parker, while 88 percent began with an ordinary idea that they then executed in an exceptional way.

Parker defined an entrepreneur as: "A person passionately focused on creating change, making a difference and willing to take on the inherent risk of that undertaking." Among his rules of the road: "It's all about execution, about sales and marketing, about getting it done and getting folks to buy your product," he said. It's also about moving fast. Successful entrepreneurs can move from idea to realization in under a year, Parker said.

In addition to being the father of CCBN, Parker is the founder of Technical Data Corp. and First Call, two highly successful companies that make financial information available electronically, and Business Research Corp., which does the same for company information. Parker, a member of the Cornell Board of Trustees, earned two engineering degrees from Cornell, a bachelor's (1965) and a master's (1966), and an MBA (1970).

Cornell's Entrepreneur of the Year award was established by the university's Johnson Graduate School of Management but is now a part of the universitywide Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise Program.