Winslow Sargeant

Dr. Winslow Sargeant, the chief counsel for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, is in Seattle this week to check the pulse of the entrepreneurial community and attend his very first Startup Weekend. GeekWire chatted with the former venture capitalist and entrepreneur on a range of issues that matter to startup technology companies, from immigration reform to the new Startup America program.

Appointed by President Obama in August 2010, Sargeant calls himself a “techie” with a PhD in electrical engineering who previously co-founded the semiconductor company Aanetcom.

Here are excerpts from the conversation:

What brings you to Seattle? ” I want to meet with small businesses owners to find out what the issues are with regard to regulation and small business research. The Office of Advocacy works best when we can hear directly from small businesses and advocate on their behalf on the federal level.”

Given Seattle’s vibrant startup community what specifically can you do to help them? “We have been working on a program called Startup America that was launched earlier this year…. to identify ways that we can empower the entrepreneur and look to reduce the roadblocks that an entrepreneur might face so they can effectively do what they do best, and that is to focus on growing their business. We need entrepreneurs. We know that small businesses in the last 17 years have created two thirds of the net new jobs, so we need to empower the entrepreneur.”

A hot-button issue in the tech industry is immigration reform and H1-B visas. What’s your position on those issues? “To grow and to flourish, we must have access to the best and the brightest. So, we must have a process that is as clear and as transparent and as predictable in terms of when one applies for an H1-B visa than the rules are known…. We are working with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to make them aware of how important H1-B visas are. I am also very encouraged that the president has stated that we keep the best and the brightest here. At many of our institutions, especially in high-tech majors, we have a number of international students who are great and want to stay here and want to add to our economy and want to create the next great companies. So we must find a way to support them, and find a way to keep them here as well.”

What are you hearing from entrepreneurs about what they really need? “There are a number of issues. One, that keeps coming up, is that funding is still a huge concern. There are great ideas out here — they are ready to go, ready to launch, ready to hire, ready to introduce products into the marketplace. But access to capital is still a challenge.”

How do you make that a more efficient process from your position in the federal government? “For startups, and for those that have IP, it is hard for them to go to a bank and ask for a loan. When Startup America was launched this year, the focus was on high growth and entrepreneurial companies.

Some in the venture capital business don’t think it is the role of government to get involved in that process. What’s your take on that? “I think the role of government is to help some of these companies get started. And as someone who has started and grown a company and spent four years at the SBIR program at the National Science Foundation, I know the role of the private-public partnership role that government can play. There is a role for government. And, of course, I make sure that government doesn’t take a heavy hand and, in terms of regulation, that government doesn’t stifle the engine of innovation. But there is a role … that government can play and should play.”

I hear you are going to Startup Weekend this weekend in Seattle. What are you expecting? “What I expect is, first of all, to be in an environment where you see smart people coming together around a common problem … and to introduce a new way of doing things where it could create a new service or product or a company. I look forward to seeing the collaboration because this is what we need to right our economy. I’ve started a number of companies, and so I like to say that the great thing about entrepreneurs and those involved in innovation — unlike in the law profession that is based on precedent — an entrepreneur seems to do the unprecedented.”

What are your impression of the Seattle business community? “Seattle has a long history of innovation, not just in software but in medical devices and a whole host of different areas as well. The exciting thing that I find here is just the energy in terms of both the innovation, the technology, the work-life balance, the outdoors…. Seattle brings all of those elements together, in terms of those who are into the outdoors and hike, bike, fish, run and jump but also at the same time they are the ones who are leading the charge to put new products and new ideas into a global marketplace. There are a lot of exciting things going on here, and I am glad to be here.”

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