Triangle adapts to tight money: startups and schools in the region are forging partnerships and finding other new ways to survive the recession, leaders say.

• Position: Interview

Entrepreneurs need capital, of course, but maybe greater needs are expertise in running companies and partnerships with larger businesses. That's what a group of Triangle region leaders said during a recent round table hosted by RBC Bank (USA) in Raleigh. Participants were Jim Brown, managing director of public & institutional banking at the bank, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada; Bob Heuts, executive director of the Lee County Economic Development Commission; Kim Korando, a partner at Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan LLC law firm in Raleigh; John Lewis, chief financial officer of UNC Heath Care System in Chapel Hill; Brooks Raiford, CEO of the North Carolina Technology Association; and Steve Scott, president of Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh. Arthur O. Murray, BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA managing editor for special projects, moderated. Following is a transcript, edited for brevity and clarity.

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A recent N.C. State University study found that lack of capital isn't a death sentence for startups. Do you agree, and how can companies overcome a lack of capital?

Brown: It depends on what type of startup company it is. The failure rate for restaurants is 80%. You have to have a good balance in a small startup. My wife and daughter have one. My wife has an MBA in accounting, and my daughter is very creative and sales-oriented. But you must have working capital, and for a lot of people, that's hard to come by.

Raiford: For technology startups, there's a good infrastructure in place, including the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, law firms, banks and others. They provide tech startups with assistance, whether it's information about running a business or getting access to the people they need to get in front of. With cash harder to get, that may become even more important.

Korando: What the N.C. State study measured is whether a startup is better off to have the A-plus management team or the A-plus product or service to sell. It found that having the A-plus product was actually a better indicator of long-term success than spending money on the A-plus management team.

Lewis: That's counterintuitive.

Korando: CED did a membership survey earlier this year. One of the primary findings concerned the interest in capital from entrepreneurs and how the need for it was impacting them. Something they asked the council and other organizations to do is to provide workshops on how to succeed if venture capital isn't available. CED is very focused on this issue. Some of the things that we talked about were partnering with larger corporations, seeking government contracts or grants and developing techniques for stretching the dollars that they have.

Raiford: NCTA was involved a few years ago in creating the Defense & Security Technology Accelerator, a business incubator in Fayetteville. It provides physical space for small startups that have innovations under way but may not be fully capitalized and partners them with larger contractors that would benefit from the innovations and therefore might provide the capital needed to develop their products or services. Both partners benefit. It's a unique incubator approach--a small example of a way partnerships can be forged.

Scott: Community colleges deal with entrepreneurs all the time. There are 58 small-business centers around the state. At Wake Tech, our center sees about 4,000 people a year who want information about how to start or grow a business. About 99% of these have fewer than 10 employees.

What about larger startups?

Scott: In this community, what we found was that the Small Business Administration needed to be here, so we invited the SBA to...