Companies that are preparing to sell and service their products internationally may be best positioned to attract venture capital, Jeffrey Hoffman, managing partner of local investment firm, Smith-Hoffman Capital, LLC told GlobalAtlanta.

Mr. Hoffman, a former executive with www.Priceline.com who has more than 15 years of entrepreneurial experience, said that he looks for companies that have potential to market, ship and service their products globally before investing in them.

“If they can fulfill, deliver, install and service a product internationally, then those companies just have huge potential now,” Mr. Hoffman said, in a video interview at GlobalAtlanta’s office in Decatur.

He explained that the Internet, which is continuously reaching new parts of the world, gives producers an unprecedented marketing range.  And handheld wireless devices are extending that range to areas that have been previously underserved by computers, he said.

Mr. Hoffman has participated in the evolving international marketplace since becoming an entrepreneur in college at Yale University.  

His first company, Competitive Technologies Inc., or CTI, a software company that redefined computer automation in the travel industry, was sold to American Express Corp. in 1992 but took him first to communist Russia as a travel industry consultant.

In recent years, he has scouted software development for various companies in Costa Rica, India and Israel, which he said all have strong industries but different work ethics based on their cultural backgrounds.

In the late 1990s, Mr. Hoffman worked with Sweden-based Wallenberg Group, which bought Virtual Shopping Inc., an online retailing software company that he built in Texas, before moving to Atlanta.

Since then, he has become actively involved in business development in Georgia offering entrepreneurial guidance to technology start-ups, in addition to working in the state’s growing film industry.

He is also a business mentor with the Advanced Technology Development Center, an incubator affiliated with the Georgia Institute of Technology and a business coach with the Kaufman Institute’s FastTrac business training program. 

Through both organizations, he has worked with a number of technology start-ups throughout the state.  And entrepreneurial guidance, he said, is the technology industry’s greatest need in Georgia.

“A lot of great technology ideas come up here,” he said.  “Our weakness is that they're not well wrapped typically in business.”

Venture capital firms like Smith-Hoffman Capital, which not only offers young companies investment monies but also sales, marketing and business management guidance, are missing opportunities, said Mr. Hoffman, who was enthusiastic about attracting more investors to the state.

While technology start-ups still need business guidance, Georgia’s universities and Fortune 500 companies are helping to drive technological innovation by attracting talented technology professionals to the state, he said.

A statewide film industry is also developing as a result of local colleges, said Mr. Hoffman, who is planning to film a movie south of Atlanta in the coming months. 

He cited the Savannah College of Art and Design as attracting talented film students and professors to Georgia and commended the school’s curriculum and annual film festivals as helping to put Georgia on the map in the industry.

Tax incentives offered by the state of Georgia are also encouraging directors to shoot films here, he said noting that he had worked closely with the state in preparing to film his movie here.

While both state and university officials are doing their part to foster a film industry here, Mr. Hoffman would like to see more graduates of the Savannah College of Art and Design stay in Georgia, rather than leave for California in search of film industry jobs.

“We are developing right here in the state of Georgia fantastic talent, and then we're losing it all to the major studios in Hollywood,” he said, explaining that young film professionals go to California to have their work recognized by industry professionals and ultimately consumers. 

With a little more entrepreneurial guidance, though, students might be inclined to start their own film businesses in Georgia, he said.

And with the advent of digital technologies, the opportunity to build a film industry outside of Hollywood has never been greater, Mr. Hoffman said, explaining that films can now be easily downloaded off of the Internet.

“It could not be more exciting to be an artist at this point, because you suddenly have the ability to distribute your entertainment directly to consumers,” he said in the interview.

After leaving Priceline.com more than five years ago, Mr. Hoffman worked as CEO and chairman of Black Sky Entertainment Inc., a privately held media production company that produced indie horror film, “Cabin Fever,” in 2002. 

He has also worked on the business side of the music and gaming industries.

In addition to serving as a business mentor and working with Smith-Hoffman Capital, Mr. Hoffman sits on the board of a number of up-and-coming companies in the technology and entertainment industries. 

He also serves as CEO and board chair of the American Association of Adapted Sports Programs, a Georgia-based association that builds and maintains interscholastic sports leagues for students with disabilities.