If you’re an entrepreneur looking for a way to finance a small business or grow an existing company, you’re likely feeling a little lost and confused. Many people have great ideas that could solve problems and meet the market’s needs, but they don’t know how to fund their business idea.

Learn the top financing options for entrepreneurs to simplify the process and help turn your idea into a reality or expand your current business.

MY ENTREPRENEUR STORY

Serial entrepreneur Marsha Kelly shares her entrepreneurial experiences at best4businesses.com.

Before I reveal some lending options, I want to give you an overview of my story and why I am passionate about these financial resources. Although I loved building my company from scratch and watching my returns grow, my limited resources stopped my business from reaching its full potential.

Getting a loan that matched my needs enabled me to take my bottom line to new heights. I could outsource to utilize talent from around the world, improve my branding, and break into other markets. New and exciting opportunities will pop up and promptly disappear if you don’t act fast, and the right lending options can prevent you from being left behind.

Here are some financing options for small business owners to consider.

401(K) FINANCING

You can fund your business with ease if you have money in an IRA 401(k) account, and it’s not as hard as it might sound. In most cases, people need to pay taxes and expensive fees when they withdraw money from a retirement account early, but you can get around that roadblock without much trouble. The way to start, buy, or expand a business with your retirement savings is called a Rollover for Business Startup (ROBS). You can pull $50,000 or more out of your account to launch your business in no time. Find out how to set up a ROBS account.

WORKING CAPITAL

Working capital loans are a valuable tool when you want to grow an existing business. These loans will keep your company on track. You can use them to fund your everyday expenses, such as buying inventory or paying your staff. When your sales slow down and you need a way to keep your head above water, this path could be the perfect solution. You can get the money into your account quickly and you can take this path when you need a short-term lending option. The biggest downside, though, is that your lender will have the right to claim any remaining equity before your investors if you file bankruptcy.

BUSINESS LINE OF CREDIT

If you want to get funds to run your business and plan to do the same in the future, get a business line of credit. Doing so enables you to borrow and repay loans when you need them, and you won’t have to fill out additional applications each time. In simple terms, a business line of credit is a credit card for your business and you can use the funds how you want.

INVOICE FACTORING

Invoice factoring is another great option when you need money and don’t have time to wait. Most companies and small businesses have unpaid invoices sitting around the office, but you can turn them into liquid assets before you know it. Depending on several things, you can sell your unpaid invoices for 60% to 95% of their value and the factoring company will then collect the invoices. Since you won’t get the full amount your customers owe when you take this path, weigh the pros and cons before making a final decision.

LOAN KABBAGE REVIEW

If you’re interested in getting working capital loans, invoice factoring, or other alternative funding options, consider the benefits of going to Kabbage. I have looked at several top review sites to get a clear picture of what you can expect if you opt for this path. As far as benefits are concerned, you can get your funds sooner than you would with other lenders; Kabbage approves some borrowers within a few hours of receiving their application. Learn more about Kabbage loans for small business.

Also, Kabbage will even give you a loan if you have bad credit. When you decide to move forward and take out a loan with this finance company, you can get between $2,000 and $100,000. However, Kabbage compensates for the risk of lending to those with poor credit by raising their fees, and some people pay an annual percentage rate of 99%.

ACCOUNT RECEIVABLE FINANCING

Although a lot of people view account receivable loans and invoice factoring as the same thing, these funding options are different. Learning what separates them will help you choose the option that makes sense for your needs. Learn the difference between factoring and invoice financing, which is rather than selling your unpaid invoices, you will borrow money and use your invoices as collateral.

If someone takes this path and is unable to repay the loan, the lender can collect the invoices to compensate for the balance. The amount you can expect to borrow with account receivable loans depends on a few things. You can give your lender peace of mind if you show that your customers have a history of paying their bills.

MERCHANT ACCOUNT ADVANCES

If you accept credit cards as a payment option, a merchant account advance could be the right solution for you. It enables you to take out a loan based on your average profit. The lender will take a percentage of your credit card payments until you have repaid the loan and closed the account. You won’t need to break your budget to repay the loan during times of slow sales, putting your worries to rest.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT FINANCING OPTION FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

Financial restraints should not stop you from growing or starting a business, and they won’t harm your progress if you follow a proven plan. Keep your needs and goals in mind when you decide what lending option is right for you, and you will be pleased with the result.

About the Author
Marsha Kelly is a serial entrepreneur who has done time in corporate America, selling her first business for more than $1 million. Marsha shares her entrepreneurial experiences at best4businesses.com.

Focus Telecom Expense Management co-owners (left to right): Michael Ciaburri, Joseph Picone, and Gianni Castaldo.

Focus Telecom Expense Management co-owners Gianni Castaldo, Michael Ciaburri, and Joseph Picone told Innovation Destination Hartford about why they launched their startup and their future goals.

INNOVATION DESTINATION HARTFORD: When and why did you  start the company?

FOCUS TELECOM EXPENSE MANAGEMENT: We started in the second half of 2017. The three partners of Focus Telecom managed a wireless retail franchise in Connecticut, specializing in small and medium business support.

IDH: How did you develop the business concept?

FOCUS: While working in the industry and talking to our clients, we saw their need for a more personalized support system for our clients’ wireless needs. Some businesses don’t have a dedicated employee or enough resources to monitor and manage their accounts. This causes companies to incur unnecessary additional fees and pay higher rates.

That’s where we come in—Focus Telecom is essentially an extension of your business, constantly working with you to save money.

IDH: Did each of you always want to own your own business?

FOCUS: Yes, we have always loved the idea of being our own bosses and have finally taken the steps toward our goal.

IDH: What differentiates you from other companies?

FOCUS: Believing in the principles instilled in us by our former employer to “put the customer first,” our mission is to create the most value for any client. This is accomplished by our continued work on refining our process to become as efficient as possible, making our clients the main beneficiaries of our efforts.

IDH: What makes your services innovative?

FOCUS: Our goal is to reduce your company’s overall telecom expenses. We have more than 25 years of combined wireless experience, with specific knowledge regarding business offerings and billings. We work to optimize a client’s wireless plan to best fit their needs, pairing with them with a plan that is the most cost effective and provides the best value.

Additionally, we provide monthly bill audits to discover any anomalies and erroneous charges, and work with the carriers directly to resolve them. That means no more time wasted on the phone or in store for any your company’s employees, eliminating unnecessary and costly downtime.

IDH: Why did you become a MetroHartford Alliance investor?

FOCUS: We saw all the great partners MetroHartford Alliance already had as well as all the Hartford initiatives that the Alliance offers and thought: This is the group we want to grow our company with!

IDH: What has been your biggest challenge as a startup?

FOCUS: Educating our clients about the value of the services we provide. In an ever-changing industry like wireless, it’s impossible for most companies to stay on top of all the new and most cost-effective offerings, meaning they are paying more than they need to. Working with us reduces the wireless expense line item, leading to a bigger bottom line for your company.

IDH: Aside from funding, what resources do you need most to move your company forward?

FOCUS: Our company is simple with minimal overhead. Our biggest need, like all companies, is more clients.

IDH: What is your ideal vision for the company one year from now?

FOCUS: We plan on growing our company to include a sales force and expand outside of the state.

IDH: What is the best advice you have received?

FOCUS: “Don’t be afraid to take a risk in life.”

Learn more about Focus Telecom Expense Management

VISIT: focustem.com

WATCH A VIDEO:

Tainted co-founders Andrea Cortez (far left) and Alyssa Haley (right) with a model.

Innovation Destination Hartford spoke with Tainted Inc. Founder Andrea Cortez in February 2016. At that time, the startup was participating in the reSET Impact Accelerator to get some formal business experience, structure, and support (read the interview: Hartford Startup Tainted Inc. Is Committed to Empowering Women).

Since then, Tainted has continued its mission to empower women and added a new product line, Scry Collection. IDH Website Curator Nan Price stopped by the beauty bar to catch up with Andrea and Co-Founder Alyssa Haley and find out more about their startup journey.

NAN PRICE: When we met in 2016, you were participating in the reSET Accelerator. What did you gain from the experience?

ANDREA CORTEZ: I love their mission. reSET enabled us to grow our network and gain access to mentorship in different areas of business. Through the experience, we learned how to do market research—really take time to ask questions and find out what people want.

NAN: Have you tapped into any other Connecticut startup resources?

ANDREA: Yes, I’ve been able to work with Milena Erwin, Program Manager of the Women’s Business Center at the University of Hartford Entrepreneurial Center. She’s always been very gracious about including us. In fact, everyone we’re worked with at the Entrepreneurial Center is about connecting, working to create a model to help small businesses get off the ground, and offering classes help you meet other entrepreneurs on the same journey.

NAN: Tainted was founded in January 2015. Tell us about the evolution since.

The Tainted team at the 2016 Hartford Fashion Week VIP party.

ANDREA: When you own your own business, you’re talking about it all the time. But it wasn’t enough to talk about and provide makeup services. We recognized that women want more.

We’ve expanded. We recently acquired a 2,200 square foot space in the Arbor Arts Center, where we are located. Now we’re offering classes and workshops building on the idea of creating a source for feminine totality. We’re really looking to pioneer that movement—create a place for women to come and experience their authentic femininity and provide a body positive environment for women and the youth.

NAN: Are the workshops geared toward women only?

ALYSSA HALEY: Not definitively. And that’s a challenge with defining what we do. So, we use the word “feminine.” As Andrea said, this is a safe space for “feminine totality.”

NAN: What makes Tainted different from a spa or fitness facility?

ANDREA: Tainted’s mission is to bring totality to women. Spas and fitness centers have their purpose, but we feel women need more—we need the radical expression, the emotional and spiritual support! Not to mention, a sense of community.

Acknowledging that not one brand can have it all, we pride ourselves in partnering with leading experts in the arenas of mind, body, and spirit. We’re launching an exploratory membership in summer 2018.

Our members will have access to workshops and classes that incorporate meditative dance and movement. Members will also receive special perks at our Beauty Studio, which focuses on all wellness and beauty needs. Tainted offers everything from aromatherapy facials, to makeup and hair lessons, to our signature service beauty concierge. We’ll also offer Body Tour, a specific membership designed to provide access to multiple fitness and wellness boutiques and gyms in Connecticut. The mindset is, if we don’t provide it, we want to connect you local people who are doing it best.

NAN: Let’s talk about your collaboration with other Hartford-area artisans and organizations. Tainted has been involved with many.

ANDREA: Yes! We’ve collaborated with 300 local artists and 57 nonprofit and for-profit businesses. Not only are we creating a space for women, we’re building a community.

And that’s another piece of the membership—inviting in other local small business. Really saying: Now that you’ve helped us get here, let us help you. So, we’re forming true collaborations with local gyms, boutique fitness centers, healing centers, and individual artisans who we can bring in to offer a variety of workshops and classes.

Partnering with and inviting in other local small businesses is what makes our membership concept so unique and exciting! What we can bring to our audience is endless.

We’re also very focused on giving back to youth and the community. For example, we’ve been working with The Village and Our Piece of the Pie for the past three years.

NAN: It seems like you’ve been doing well with funding and building clientele since you launched.

ANDREA: We’ve been fortunate. We started the company with $125! After three months, the business started to pay for itself. Because of our involvement with the community, we’ve grown naturally and organically, so we have never needed investors.

NAN: Tell us about the new product line.

ANDREA: We launched Scry (pronounced skr-i) November 2017. It’s a tangible piece of Tainted you can take with you. Prior to the product line, we were always service.

ALYSSA: With the authentic approach to beauty Tainted has created, a relationship with mirrors was organic. Tainted consults with clients to create customized pieces of jewelry. We formed a partnership with Sarah Naid Design, who does all the metalsmithing and Tainted does the concept.

NAN: What do you enjoy most about having your business in Hartford?

ANDREA: What’s great about Hartford is that everyone is doing the best they can. It’s truly a magical place. We’ve seen so much support and love for this city—people really want it to grow and build. It’s real. That’s why we don’t want to leave. The businesses, artisans, and community are always here for each other.

ALYSSA: And people really recognize the individuals behind the businesses. People ask us: What are you doing next? How can we get involved? How can we collaborate?

ANDREA: In the next five years, I strongly feel that Parkville will become The Art and Fashion District of Hartford. It just needs that call of action, and that’s why I’m here. I plan on shouting that from the rooftop of the Arbor Art Center Building!

In the last year alone, we have had more than eight small business and artists move into our building. And in Parkville artisans include Hartford Denim Company, Hog River Brewing Company, and Idle Wilde Printing. They’re also at 1429 Park Street and initiatives like The Dirt Salon, the Know Good Market, Parkville Sounds, reSET, and Hands on Hartford. Our heartbeat is pumping, and it’s just getting stronger.

Find out more about Tainted Inc.

READ: Hartford Startup Tainted Inc. Is Committed to Empowering Women
VISIT: tntdinc.com
FOLLOW: Facebook and Instagram taintedinc

George Thomson is Founder of virtual CFO startup TAAG, LLC.

A career in public accounting helped prepare George Thomson to launch his startup TAAG, LLC (Thomson Advisory and Analytics Group) in July 2017. He spoke to Innovation Destination Hartford about his startup experience.

INNOVATION DESTINATION HARTFORD: Have you always wanted to start your own business?

GEORGE THOMSON: Yes. I was a partner at a certified public accountant (CPA) firm for the last 20 years and had a great run in that role but was ready for a change and a new challenge.

As a partner, you own part of the firm, so you’re technically a business owner. I thought that would fully satisfy my desire to own my own business—and it did to some level, but not completely. I got to the point where I wanted to find out what I could do on my own.

IDH: How did you develop the business concept for your startup?

GEORGE: I explored different opportunities based on my skillset and the work I enjoy doing. I knew I wanted to break out of the mold of a traditional CPA firm and I didn’t want to re-create my old job in my new venture.

When I came across the virtual CFO concept I knew it was right for me. It gives me a great opportunity to achieve my personal and professional goals. It would allow me to act as a company’s chief financial officer providing financial advice and strategies to small and medium businesses.

I believe that plays to my strengths as a professional. What I really enjoy doing is working with entrepreneurs, advising them, and helping them grow their businesses.

My target market is small- and medium-sized businesses, as they typically can’t afford a full-time CFO, but they need CFO-level expertise. I want to help them grow their business by making sure they have accurate information and advice in real time.

IDH: Tell us a little more about the advantages of having a virtual CFO.

GEORGE: I’ve worked with many entrepreneurs who were frustrated by doing the financial and accounting functions for their business. Often, they would try to do it themselves or have a relative or friend—someone without formal training in accounting or bookkeeping—help them out. It wouldn’t be done correctly and, as their outside CPA, I would end up fixing everything. By the time that was untangled, I would be providing information six months or a year after the fact. It was all reactive and less impactful.

If the entrepreneur is working with accurate up-to-date information, they will have proactive information and advice in real time. One of the mechanisms to do that is by co-creating with them a financial dashboard tailored to their company. The dashboard provides the metrics we need to monitor and allows us to see, in real time, where they are hitting their goals and where they having issues we need to address.

The company and I have access to the dashboard 24/7. So, as soon as we see something going off the rails we can have a conversation about fixing it, as opposed to looking back months later and asking: What happened?

IDH: What do you enjoy most about working with other entrepreneurs?

GEORGE: It’s fun. I admire the passion and vision entrepreneurs have for innovation and building their businesses. It’s also critical for Connecticut’s economy. Some of the bigger corporations have been migrating their headquarters to Boston and New York and having less of a presence here in Connecticut. They will still have offices here, but the decision-makers are no longer in this market, so there’s a vacuum to fill.

I believe the entrepreneurial community can fill that vacuum and allow the Hartford area and Connecticut to continue our legacy of being innovators. When you look back at the history of the state—all the manufacturing and innovation—it is amazing. I believe we have an ingrained entrepreneurial and visionary spirit here.

Small business has always been and will always be the driver of innovation and job growth. I believe in the power of small business. It makes me feel good knowing the larger business community and political leaders believe the same. I enjoy being in the entrepreneurial space and I want to contribute to its continued growth and success here in CT.

IDH: What challenges are you facing right now as a startup?

GEORGE: I’ve been telling people: I’m excited and scared to death all at the same time. I’m having a lot of fun with moments of frustration and/or being overwhelmed. There’s a lot to do and it’s important to step back and break it down.

Some of the things I thought would be difficult weren’t as hard as I thought. Some things I thought would be a no-brainer were more difficult, time consuming, and complicated than I anticipated.

It was also challenging to get an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the federal government. I helped clients do this for years. But, when I applied online I was rejected because I was already associated with other EINs. So, it became a process. It took almost two weeks to get my EIN. Most people can usually get one online in a matter of minutes. It was eye-opening, and it gave me a real sense of the frustrations every entrepreneur goes through.

IDH: You’re a strategic partner at the MetroHartford Alliance, how has that relationship added value to your business?

GEORGE: My experience with the MetroHartford Alliance gave me a broader view point of what was going on in Connecticut and the region. I see how everything is interconnected—and important. It’s not: My sector thrives while yours fail. It’s: If we collectively do well together, the whole region becomes stronger.

The connection with the MetroHartford Alliance also helped me see that there are many opportunities out there. While I was thinking of branching out on my own, I got some great input and advice from former Metro Hartford Alliance former President and CEO Oz Griebel; Nancy Wheeler, who is Senior Vice President, Executive Director Investor Relations; Julie Daly-Meehan, Vice President of Investor Engagement and Retention, and Rich Brown, Vice President of Investor Relations.

IDH: You said your focus is small- to medium-sized businesses. Do you plan to work with any specific industry?

GEORGE: I’m looking to build a niche. I work well with professional service providers, technology companies, and manufacturers. I enjoy working in those spaces. I know the mindset.

You can best help a business if you are deep into their world, you know what’s going on, and you’re aware of the industry trends.

IDH: How you are building your client base?

GEORGE: A couple of my clients from my former firm wanted me to be their Virtual CFO, so I started with a modest base and I’ve been building organically from there.

IDH: What advice can you offer to other businesses?

GEORGE: Listen, make mistakes, learn from them, adjust, and move on. Don’t get paralyzed and don’t quit.

IDH: What does the future look like for TAAG?

GEORGE: My priority is to get this thing up and running and make it viable. I think in two years’ time I will know whether I want to scale or just keep it as a small boutique firm.

If I have great systems, procedures, and processes in place and I can see an ability to scale it up where I can bring in other professionals to help me and oversee it, I’d love to do that. But will I have the appetite in two years? Or will I really love the flexibility of being in the virtual environment without being encumbered with a bigger organization?

I am open to either scenario. One of the things I’ve always said to entrepreneurs: When you start and build a business you need to look at the end game and keep in mind your exit strategy. Whether you sell the business to internal buyers, transfer it to the next generation, sell it to a private equity group or outside buyers, or take it public, at the outset you have to devise a strategy and refine it along the way that will allow you to achieve your ultimate goal upon exit. So, there is an appeal to me to building something that’s bigger than me that can be transferred.

Either way, looking to the future, it’s important to me professionally and personally to remain a strategic partner with the MetroHartford Alliance. I believe in the work they’re doing. I’ve made a lot of great connections and I want to maintain those and continue to build my network.

Learn more about TAAG 

VISIT: www.taag-llc.com

Relic Brewing recently opened a new taproom at its location in Plainville, CT. (Photo courtesy Christine Dangelo)

Innovation Destination Hartford met with Relic Brewing Owner and Head Brewer Mark Sigman in April 2016 (read the interview: Entrepreneur Brewer: Relic Brewing). Since its launch in 2012, Relic has been brewing a variety of craft beers and “keeping pace with the industry,” which, as Mark noted back in 2016, is how to be successful.

Another inroad to success: The brewery recently added a taproom whisky bar where customers can order 0.5-oz or 1-oz pours from more than 800 spirits. Rotating whisky, mezcal, tequila, rum, or gin flights will also be available

“Since August we’ve been accumulating a truly world-class collection of fine and rare spirits to complement our beer, and we’re thrilled to finally get the word out so that people can come and experience this for themselves,” said Mark.

In addition to providing a variety of craft beers, Relic has accumulated a large collection of fine and rare spirits.

“What we’ve created is unlike anything we know of in the country and we truly believe is at the forefront of what’s new in the increasingly popular craft food and beverage scene. Our customers have so far been shocked, delighted, and returning for more—more flavors, more education, and best of all, more fun,” he added.

What makes Relic innovative? According to brewery, it’s the staff’s passion and depth of knowledge. And the fact that customers can experience the tasting in an informal setting. Relic’s innovation is the combination of approachability, affordability, and expertise paired with craft beer, the brewery noted.

Find out more about Relic Brewing

READ: Innovation Destination Hartford interview with Relic Brewing Founder Mark Sigman
VISIT: www.relicbeer.com
FOLLOW: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Where Are They Now? Follow Up with Hartford Flavor Company Co-Founders Lelaneia and Tom Dubay

Innovation Destination Hartford spoke with Hartford Flavor Company Creatrix & Infusionary Lelaneia Dubay in November 2015. Since then the startup has been on an upward trajectory with growth and success. One thing has remained certain: The company has remained committed to making a name in Hartford. IDH recently checked in with Hartford Flavor for an update.

INNOVATION DESTINATION HARTFORD: What’s new?

HARTFORD FLAVOR COMPANY: We have seen further growth in our Wild Moon Liqueurs product within restaurants and retail stores across Connecticut and the other states where we are distributed (also Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Florida, and California) as well as in our tasting room here in Hartford.

Wild Moon has won awards at international spirits competitions and is receiving more and more industry recognition.

Hartford Flavor Company Chief Executive Officer Tom envisioned and is President of the Connecticut Spirits Trail (think wine trail). He’s working to get the word out across the state and across the spirits industry countrywide that Connecticut makes great spirits. The idea is that the Connecticut Spirits Trail will help raise all boats across the state’s distillers.

Within our own growth at Hartford Flavor, we have increased the size of our team in terms of production, tasting room operations, and marketing. We have a relatively small but mighty team that is very knowledgeable and passionate about our mission.

IDH: Have you experienced any major pivots since we featured your story?

We’ve opened larger markets both near and far—Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Florida, and California. We’re getting ready to launch in Colorado in another month or so with the country’s second-largest distributor, which has operations in more than 20 states. We hope to grow across the nation with them over the next few years.

We’ve been able to focus on sales efforts in our new markets because we have an outstanding new production manager. This enables Lelaneia, as creator of the product, to get out into the trade in our new markets and tell our story.

IDH: Have you been involved with any entrepreneurial organizations of events in the region?

HARTFORD FLAVOR: Tom was on the initial steering committee for the Innovation Places group that submitted an application to the CTNext grant contest for Hartford/East Hartford. Hartford/East Hartford was one of the winning applications and is now in its early stages of implementation. The focal points in the application were InsurTech, medical innovation, and advanced manufacturing. Initial successes are happening—most notably within the InsurTech sector.

We also helped Upward Hartford at its grand opening party at the Stilts Building in May 2017, where we ran the cocktail program. That was quite an event and showed Hartford can certainly put on a great party!

In April 2016, Lelaneia and Tom appeared on the Pulse of the Region, a weekly broadcast by the MetroHartford Alliance. The topic, The Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, featured Innovation Destination Hartford Website Curator Nan Price and Back East Brewing Company co-founder Tony Karlowicz.

IDH: How are you building a customer base?

HARTFORD FLAVOR: We focus a lot on doing tasting tables at events across the state and in our other states of distribution. We continue to work within the Connecticut community at fundraisers and special events at venues across the entire state and by hosting events in our tasting room/production space.

We put a lot of focus on our tasting room/tours each weekend, where we have public hours on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and by hosting public and private events in our space. Of course, social media and digital marketing are very important as well.

IDH: Where do you see the entrepreneurial landscape heading?

HARTFORD FLAVOR: We see increasing entrepreneurial activity—both in terms of new startups and startups moving into growth phase and, perhaps more importantly, we see an increase within the public at large acknowledging these trends.

A couple of years ago, there was less startup focus, but with new ventures creating more excitement we are meeting more and more people who are recognizing the trend. It’s heartening to see folks who live outside Hartford acknowledge what is going on now.

IDH: Tell us about the importance of encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation in Connecticut.

HARTFORD FLAVOR: It is extremely important. Connecticut has always been a place where innovation happened (we’ve always been at the top or near the top in patents per capita), whether it was in small companies or within Fortune 500/1000 settings.

Innovation has and continues to be more important than ever to create a healthy economy. The speed of change continues to get faster across most industries, so of course the ability to innovate becomes more important than ever before.

We’ve seen firsthand that innovation alone is great, but it really needs to be accompanied by the ability to effectively tell your company’s or product’s story. Effective storytelling not only helps to increase sales revenue, but it also helps to attract investment needed to grow.

As much as we need innovators, we think storytelling capabilities have to become stronger as well. It would be great if marketing/PR/advertising firms could get involved with entrepreneurs to help storytelling match our innovation capabilities. Innovation Destination Hartford been doing a great job with this!

IDH: Aside from funding, what do you need most to move your company forward?

HARTFORD FLAVOR: We need to get into new states and we have a plan to do so over the next few years. This will make Wild Moon a national brand with the possibility of exporting as well. We think the United Kingdom and Europe will be great markets for us one day. It really all comes down to sales and marketing, so lots of travel is in our future.

When we envisioned our initial business plan, we thought Wild Moon would let us see the majority of the United States and then perhaps other countries—and that now seems more definite than probable.

At some point, we’ll need to expand our production space. So, it seems like it will all come down to time, effort, and money.

IDH: What’s next?

HARTFORD FLAVOR: Our Colorado launch is really important, so we’ll focus a lot on that to show our distribution partner that Wild Moon will be successful across the United States. We’ll grow our sales team in the distant markets and need to run a more far-flung operation. But, at the same time, we will make sure we don’t take our eye of the ball in terms of our home state and our commitment to be an asset to the local community.

Find out more about Harford Flavor Company

READ: Hartford Flavor Company: Hartford’s Own Distillery
VISIT: hartfordflavor.com
FOLLOW: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter

Where Are They Now? Follow Up with Black Diamond Body Piercing Owner Georgina Schiavelli

Black Diamond Body Piercing Owner Georgina Schiavelli.

Innovation Destination Hartford spoke with Black Diamond Body Piercing Owner Georgina Schiavelli in February 2016 and learned about how she embraced her entrepreneurial streak, took the leap, and opened her own business in West Hartford, CT. Georgina notes, “Our clients were thrilled to read about us in your piece!”

IDH recently followed up with Black Diamond to find out what’s new.

INNOVATION DESTINATION HARTFORD: Any big changes at Black Diamond?

GEORGINA SCHIAVELLI: Yes. I just hired a new piercer—our first full-time male piercer—who will be starting full time in April. That means Black Diamond will have now four piercers on staff; two Monday through Thursday and three piercers on Friday and Saturday. I’m hoping this will reduce our wait times significantly this summer.

I’m also beginning the process of purchasing the building from my landlord, which will enable us to finally take over the remainder of the first floor of the building, giving us a larger waiting room and of course, more space for more beautiful jewelry.

IDH: How are you building a customer base?

GEORGINA: We mostly rely on word of mouth from our happy clients, so we will continue to build our client base by always putting our clients’ wellness and safety above all and continuing our mission to offer only quality jewelry, sterile and precise piercings, and professionalism to our clients.

IDH: Where do you see the entrepreneurial landscape heading?

The Black Diamond Body Piercing team Melissa Willette,  Georgina Schiavelli, Kat Shazam (standing), Brooke Bittens, and Andie Saunders.

GEORGINA: Although the future of small businesses in this country can seem unsteady to some, I think people are returning to older values of wanting to support their community and local businesses. Also, since the bubble of the corporate job market seems to be bursting, and there really is no such thing as a sure thing in any job market nowadays, I hope the next generation is even more motivated to create a life for themselves out of their passions and open businesses of their own.

On that note, I hope Black Diamond will be a staple of this community for many years to come.

IDH: Tell us about the importance of supporting entrepreneurship here in Connecticut.

GEORGINA: Small businesses are such a huge part of any community. They give people a place to gather, work, and of course get expert services from people they know they can count on to be there for them in the future. The foundation of any community is the small business and relationships within that community that connect them all.

IDH: Aside from funding, what do you need most to move your company forward?

GEORGINA: I think what Black Diamond needs is just to continue doing what we have been doing so we can continue to grow and provide the best jewelry and services possible to our clients. It seems like we have been playing catch up for years, and I’m really looking forward to having shorter wait times now that we have another full-time piercer.

IDH: What’s next?

GEORGINA: For now, I’m just focusing on the building purchase/waiting room expansion, our new piercer schedule, and keeping up our ever-growing stock of beautiful jewelry for our clients.

Learn more about Black Diamond Body Piercing

READ: Innovation Destination Hartford interview with Founder Georgina Schiavelli: Embracing Entrepreneurship
VISIT: blackdiamondbodypiercing.com
FOLLOW: Facebook| Instagram | Twitter

Where Are They Now? Follow Up with Champagne Corsets & Designs Carol Stella

Champagne Corsets & Designs, LLC Founder Carol Stella at one of the photoshoots where she collaborated with Aria’s Wedding & Banquet Facility. (Photo courtesy Alyssa Michel, photo enhancement courtesy Intimatology)

In October 2016, Innovation Destination Hartford spoke with Champagne Corsets & Designs, LLC Founder Carol Stella. The Connecticut-based company specialize in creating unique, expertly tailored couture corsets. IDH caught up with Stella to find out how the startup has evolved.

INNOVATION DESTINATION HARTFORD: Give us an update.

CAROL STELLA: My design studio has moved! We are now located in Prospect, CT, where we meet with our clients by appointment only. You can book an appointment with us through our website or call us at 917.524.9908.

I am now the face of both my designs and brand by expanding my title to Designer, Creative Director, Corsetiere, Model, Blogger, and Style Influencer at Champagne Corsets & Designs.

About eight months ago I launched a new blog called “How to Wear Corsets in Real Life.” I feel it’s important for me to practice what I preach and to gain the trust and loyalty of my clients. I’m really trying to stop the assumptions that corsets are restrictive, difficult to breathe in, and can only be worn for special events.

Not only do I educate people about how and why to incorporate corsets into their everyday routine, but I am also able to tweak anything I may find that needs changing, whether it be in my patterns, my fabric choices, or my sewing techniques. This idea has made my brand authentic and sets me apart from other brands and businesses.

I also love to collaborate with and support other Connecticut businesses. I have been receiving a lot of positive feedback from my blog posts and I just collaborated with Aria’s Wedding & Banquet Facility in Prospect, CT, where I did a couple of beautiful photo shoots. This is also where my bridal collection will be unveiling soon.

IDH: Have you experienced any major pivots since we featured your story?

STELLA: In August 2017, I traveled to Oxford, England and attended the Oxford Conference of Corsetry. It’s a weekend residential conference where corset makers from around the world gather, share industry secrets, brainstorm ideas, inspire each other, and talk non-stop about corsets! I had the privilege to be a part of this experience and, for anyone interested. (Read my recap blog posts “Champagne Goes to Oxford” Part 1 and Part 2.)

IDH: Have you been involved with any startup resources in the region?

STELLA: I recently recorded a podcast with the CTStartup Podcast team. A special thank you to Chris DeMorro, Dave Menard, Andrea Stalf, and Jacqueline Rowe for this opportunity.

IDH: How are you building a customer base?

STELLA: Word of mouth and by educating the public about corsetry through my blog posts on social media and on my website.

IDH: Tell us about the importance of encouraging entrepreneurship in Connecticut.

STELLA: I think it’s essential that the private and governmental sectors promote and facilitate young entrepreneurs, like me, to follow their dreams.

IDH: Aside from funding, what do you need most to move your company forward?

STELLA: I would like more of an opportunity to educate the public about the beneficial effects of wearing corsets daily. Over time, I’ve already been feeling stronger and healthier and I’ve experienced additional benefits I never expected.

IDH: What’s next for Champagne Corsets?

STELLA: I’m expanding my collaborations with the fine arts and theaters. I have studied both historical and modern-day corsetry, which helps my designs to crossover into costume design.

Learn more about Champagne Corsets & Designs, LLC

READ: Connecticut Startup Creates Custom Corsets
VISIT: www.champagnecorsets.com
FOLLOW: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter

Join Upward Hartford and the Trinity College Women’s Leadership Council for She Means Business Thursday, May 3 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at Upward Hartford.

The event will include open networking and a fireside chat with Shana Schlossberg, interviewed by Cynthia Dokas Whipple.

Founder and CEO of Upward Hartford, Shana Schlossberg, will share her experience as a female serial entrepreneur. Find out why Hartford was the city of choice for her most recent venture and learn why she is so passionate about supporting the city’s startup community.

The mission of She Means Business is to fill the room with strong female entrepreneurs willing to

• Break down networking boundaries to set in motion a movement for Hartford’s women in business
• Build powerful relationships
• Prioritize one another’s success
• Set an example for the next generation of Hartford’s young women

Shana Schlossberg has 16 years of experience directing a broad range of technology initiatives in the internet, media, telecom, and emergency services industries. She founded EZBZ in 2011, with the goal of creating an efficient and fair platform which uses innovative technology to connect consumers and local businesses in real time. Shana frequently mentors startups and entrepreneurs, guiding them through the process and helping them build the best business possible. In 2015, Shana was honored in the White House by the Sustainable Business Council for her work in sustainable enterprises and for supporting local businesses.

Cynthia Dokas Whipple received a BA from Trinity College in 1988 and her JD from New York Law School in 1991. She is currently the Director of Graduate Support and Admissions at Covenant Prep School in Hartford, as well as a private educational consultant at SuccessPrep Partners. Cynthia is the co-author of Merrilee Mannerly, a children’s book that was adapted into a musical. She is also a producer for The Conversation: Stories that Matter, a conversation series focusing on mother loss. Cynthia’s strong writing background as both an attorney and creative writer has helped her in his various pursuits as a litigator, a children’s book author, and an educational consultant.

Wine, Beer, and Refreshments will be served. Register to attend.

Connecticut entrepreneur Jim Giuliano is Founder of Construction Solutions Group.

Connecticut entrepreneur Jim Giuliano founded Construction Solutions Group (CSG) in September 2014. The company specializes in owner’s project management services, working on behalf of public and private clients during the planning, design, and construction phases of projects as an extension of their team to ensure that work is completed in accordance with defined budget, schedule, and overall objectives.

Jim shared his entrepreneurial experience with Innovation Destination Hartford Website Curator Nan Price.

NAN PRICE: Is this your first startup, or do you have entrepreneurial experience?

JIM GIULIANO: Entrepreneurialism runs in my family. My father and two older brothers started a masonry contracting business in the 1970s where I worked during summers and school breaks.

My journey as an entrepreneur began when a former coworker and I started purchased a concrete company in the early 2000s. It’s actually still being run; my partner bought me out.

While was working at the Capital Region Education Council (CREC), the entrepreneur bug hit me again. I had an opportunity to begin consulting and I couldn’t say no. Soon after I founded Construction Solutions Group.

NAN: Have you always wanted to start your own company as opposed to working for someone else?

JIM: Yes. I’ve always had that “I can do it better” feeling. But it can be extremely nerve-racking going out on your own, especially when you have children and a family depending on you. I had the confidence that I’d be able to do this—and be able to grow it—and fortunately, that vision is coming to fruition.

NAN: How has your background helped you develop the business concept for CSG?

JIM: I spent a majority of my career working for construction management companies. My work at CREC helped me gain owner’s representative expertise—and experience from the owner’s perspective.

What sets CSG apart is our experience and our approach. A lot of our clients are municipalities, so they obviously have to be budget and schedule conscious. Many of their projects are being partially reimbursed by the State of Connecticut. Once they get an approval for a project, for example passing a referendum, we drill down to help them understand the associated responsibilities and financing strategies.

NAN: How you are building your clientele?

JIM: We have a great network of people in the industry. We’re constantly in communication with architectural and construction management firms. The industry kind of helps itself, too. Everyone communicates, so we end up hearing about projects that way.

Also, we get people coming to us. It’s a combination of word-of-mouth and outreach from potential clients. I jokingly say CSG is a marketing company that does program management for private clients and municipalities.

NAN: Speaking of marketing, you and I connected through Lindsey Mathieu, Founder of Golden Egg Concepts, which specializes in marketing and business development for architecture, engineering, and construction companies.

JIM: Right! Since I’ve started this business, I’ve been much more conscious about utilizing other small businesses and startups. We try to use local businesses with everything we do, because we understand how difficult it can be when you’re a smaller business or just starting out.

Golden Egg does all our marketing. Lindsey and I met through a friend. She was the first person I spoke with before I started the business. I met with her and told her what I needed. Because I knew that for this business to take off, we had to get our name out there.

And we had to look professional and established. As a new company, that’s reflected in your reading materials, your brochures, your website. That was extremely important, especially because that makes an impression. I didn’t want to look like a startup.

NAN: Is the fact that you are located in Connecticut important for your company?

JIM: It is. Our central location in West Hartford allows us to geographically cover all parts of Connecticut. We have clients literally in all corners of the state—and we’re actually starting to expand up into Western Massachusetts, which is equally easy to reach. I think it helps when you’re networked within your community and able to have personal connections with people who can potentially help you out.

I grew up in Hartford and I’d like to eventually move our business right downtown. That is a goal of mine.

NAN: Any other future goals?

JIM: At some point, when the opportunity presents itself, we’d like to expand our client base beyond Connecticut. We’re continuing to grow our team and that includes hiring an additional employee, maybe even two.

NAN: Let’s talk about funding—that’s usually a challenge for most startups, especially in the early stages.

JIM: I’m trying to avoid outside funding, if possible. So far, thankfully, we have no debt. I aim to keep it that way—being conservative, and only taking out what I need. I put the rest back into the business—we have to reinvest in CSG to continue to grow and survive.

We do a lot of projections and anticipate different scenarios. There are projects we’re contracted for, projects we know are going to be coming up soon, and we occasionally get a call about a project we weren’t expecting.

NAN: Any other startup challenges you’ve encountered?

JIM: You’ve got to understand how taxes and insurance are going to affect your business. If you’re going to have employees, you need to know how worker’s compensation works. You’ve got to understand how general liability works. Because the more money you make, the more money they want. You’ve got to keep in mind.

That’s why we do projections and constantly update our financial plans. If we get this project, how does that impact our yearly revenue, and how is that going to affect our workload?

NAN: Tell us about your team and who’s involved with CSG.

JIM: CSG is a strategic collaboration of professionals. We have a great team. A colleague of mine joined as CSG’s first “official” employee and is going to be a partner with me. Altogether, we’re up to a staff of five employees.

We work very closely with Lindsey and her team at Golden Egg. I also enlist the services of associates on an as-needed basis for their expertise and experience as retired business officials. This is a win-win, because I’m not committed fully to them and they don’t want to be fully committed for that matter. We apply their invaluable insight when we need it. When our workload increases they are there to help us out.

NAN: Looking back, have you had any moments where you think: I wish we had done that differently?

JIM: Our first year we won a considerable amount of work and then ended up getting bogged down in actually doing the work. For that reason, we weren’t out marketing ourselves or focusing on new opportunities to fill the pipeline. It was a tough second year because of that.

When our third year came along, things broke open for us. We learned a valuable lesson. Our motto is we can’t repeat the same mistakes. When you’re busy, you still need to be focused on lining up new projects.

NAN: Any advice for other entrepreneurs?

JIM: You’re going to get out of it what you put into it. It’s going to be scary. You have to put the fear aside and just go get it done.

If you have an idea, make sure you have a good plan in place. It’s more than just starting up. It’s about creating a business plan for this year—then updating it for the next year, then the following. Longevity is the goal.

And it’s more than just having a plan. You have to constantly look back and ask yourself: How have we done? What do we need to do to expand our business or increase sales? And, if we haven’t done something right, what do we need to do to correct it? You must always plan—but you need to be flexible too.

It’s been a lot of fun setting goals and achieving them. We don’t stop. We always set the bar higher.

Learn more about Construction Solutions Group

VISIT: csgroup-llc.com

Where Are They Now? Follow Up with CONNetic Dance Founder Carolyn Paine

Connecticut entrepreneur Carolyn Paine is Founder, Director, and Choreographer of CONNetic Dance. (Photo courtesy Greg Bernier)

Innovation Destination Hartford spoke with Carolyn Paine, Founder, Director, and Choreographer of CONNetic Dance, in April 2016. IDH recently followed up to see what she’s been up to.

INNOVATION DESTINATION HARTFORD: What’s new?

CAROLYN PAINE: I continue to strive to create with CONNetic Dance. This year’s production of Nutcracker Suite & Spicy marked our eighth year bringing our unique holiday show to Hartford at the Aetna Theatre at the Wadsworth Atheneum.

This year the show reached our largest audiences yet and featured some new choreography, some rapping from Hartford’s Tang Sauce, and a cool visual effect with LED lights in the tutus, which added to the whirling Snowball scene.

Personally, it was also a hard year as I slipped on the ice a few days before opening and broke my ankle. Three months later, I am recovering well and am back in the studio. I’m excited to be back on stage with CONNetic and am looking forward to some video choreography projects, live performance opportunities, and of course Nutcracker next year.

Along with the directors of Boston Ballet and New York’s Brooklyn Ballet, I was featured in an article in DanceInforma magazine about the revamping of the classical The Nutcracker.

Also, I continue to make regular appearances on WNPR’s The Colin McEnroe Show.

IDH: Have you experienced any major pivots since we featured your story?

CAROLYN: We have continued to struggle with funding and had a disappointing season in which we were unable to launch a production I wanted to do based on the music of David Bowie. But I did channel creative energy into creating a short dance horror film based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart.” This short film won laurels at the ScreamDance Film Fest in New York City and was featured in the 2017 5×5 Dance Festival at St. Joseph’s College with other dance films.

I also produced, directed, choreographed, and co-wrote a short called “You Can’t Do That” with fellow University of Hartford alum and former CONNetic dancer Adam Sarette. The short ended up winning an award at the Women in Comedy Festival in Boston and got featured on many national blogs.

These projects have really inspired me, and I would like to put more of CONNetic Dance’s existing work or dance story re-tellings—like our production of Dracula—on film as well as create other new short pieces specifically for the camera.

Creating dance for film is an amazing way to get my voice, point of view, style, and choreography in front of an even broader audience—beyond Hartford.

Professionally, beyond CONNetic Dance, I have keeping busy. I worked on a web series “Unsure/Positive” as an actress and writer and have been involved with other projects including stand up gigs, doing theatre across the country, continuing to tour with comedian Hannibal Buress as his stubborn ballerina, and shooting some other commercials and web series.

IDH: Have you collaborated with other Hartford area entrepreneurs and organizations?

CAROLYN: Yes. This year, I brought CONNetic Dance to collaborate with Connecticut photographers Bill Morgan and Greg Bernier for some amazing photo series. We work with A Little Bird Told Me for social media and marketing and do some great collaborations with them—including creating a dance flash mob in West Hartford center and using dancers as models for Lux Bond and Green jewelry store.

Our friends at Brockman’s Gin sponsored the Nutcracker Suite & Spicy again. We also collaborated with local artist Michelle Harwan, who created beautiful watercolor depictions of moments and characters from Nutcracker Suite & Spicy that we sold as prints and notecards.

Dancers from the Nutcracker Suite & Spicy enjoy over-the-top milkshakes at Hartford’s The Place 2 Be restaurant.

And one of my favorite new collaborations with a local business this year was with Hartford restaurant The Place 2 Be (stay tuned for an upcoming interview from Innovation Destination Hartford). Owner Gina Luari, another fierce female entrepreneur, proved to be an amazing collaborator. Her restaurant’s unique milkshakes and cocktails made the perfect pairing for Nutcracker Suite & Spicy characters and cross promotion.

My roommate and CONNetic Dance member Alex Zarlengo, Chion Wolf of WNPR, and I recently had fun hosting the annual AIDS Connecticut Red Carpet Experience fundraising event at Spotlight Cinema in Hartford.

I would love to continue to work with other local businesses and creators for all sorts of projects and collaborations!

IDH: How are you building a customer base?

CAROLYN: Everything we are doing, from cross promotions, to collaborations, to building our Instagram/social media following, continues to build our customer base. And I’m hoping we continue to build beyond Connecticut. Social media really changes the way you interact with world and is so important in a visual medium like dance.

IDH: Tell us about the importance of encouraging and supporting entrepreneurship in Connecticut.

CAROLYN: Connecticut is a small state and, because it’s so close to the artist mecca of New York City, it can be a challenging place to create art. Just as it’s important to support local when it comes to food, farms, and shops, it’s important to remember to support local artists.

With CONNetic, I work hard to hire and support local dancers. Dancers need to get paid. Experience and stage time are great, but won’t pay bills. I’m hoping that with more corporate and business sponsorships I can continue to work toward paying the dancers what they deserve.

Carolyn Paine and CONNetic Dance member Alex Zarlengo enjoyed hosting the annual AIDS Connecticut Red Carpet Experience fundraising event at Spotlight Cinema in Hartford. (Photo courtesy Alex Syphers, Hartford Courant)

Connecticut has amazingly talented artists and much young talent coming up through schools. I see it as my responsibility as an art creator to keep talent here in Connecticut with professional opportunities that are innovative and inspiring.

I have been excited to see the CT Dancers Facebook group I started really take off as a networking place for Connecticut dancers and other dance companies to connect for great opportunities. It has become a real forum for dancers to see that Connecticut has a thriving dance community to explore. And I think it has helped dance creators and visionaries to connect with each other and open a dialogue among us about what we need for support and what we are doing or want to do.

IDH: What’s next?

CAROLYN: Alex and I are excited to have the opportunity to return to professional dancing in May as special guest artists with Ballet School of Stamford in its production of Hansel and Gretel. This is especially exciting, since I’ve been recovering from my broken ankle and Alex has been recovering from a torn Achilles.

I am also in talks to direct a play this summer with a professional theatre company, which would be an exciting opportunity to direct for stage beyond CONNetic Dance.

And as always, keep an eye out for some new choreography projects from CONNetic—especially online! And believe it or not, it is almost time to start work on the 2018 production of Nutcracker Suite & Spicy.

Find out more about CONNetic Dance

READ: Hartford-Based Dance Troupe With an Emphasis on Community
VISIT: www.conneticdance.com
FOLLOW: Facebook, Instagram | Twitter

Learn more about Carolyn Paine

VISIT: www.carolynpaine.com
FOLLOW: Instagram | Twitter

The Connecticut Valley Brewing Team (left to right): Maxx McNall, Marketing Assistant; James Dodd; Cellerman, Andrew Blakeslee; Cellerman, Steve Palauskas, Owner; Ashley Blanchard, Director of Operations; and Jay Desroches, Head Brewer.

Steve Palauskas, Owner at Connecticut Valley Brewing Company told Innovation Destination Hartford Website Curator Nan Price about his entrepreneurial experience and how the brewery got started.

NAN: Do you have experience launching other startups?

STEVE PALAUSKAS: I started a service company in the early- to mid-90s. It was fun to start a business, take the risk, and see what you could do with it. I still have that business. It’s productive—45 people work for me there. I like to employ people. I like the challenges.

NAN: Why open a brewery?

STEVE: I’ve always enjoyed manufacturing. And I’ve always enjoyed beer and the process of making it. I started homebrewing years ago. My wife Lori encouraged me to start a brewery years ago. We just couldn’t open at the time because the other business really got going and was building at a fast pace. When that business was self-sustaining, she said: Why don’t you do it now? That was about four years ago.

At that time, the market for craft beer was really evolving. It was the perfect time to open a brewery in this area in South Windsor. It’s a prime business town. There’s a good demographic in the area. When we started looking for property the town presented this property to me. I thought it would be perfect for a brewery.

NAN: It’s a huge space.

STEVE: That was purposeful, so we could grow into it and easily add on, rather than having a brewery that was much smaller. If we grew we’d have to move and dismantle everything. This is much better. And like I said, I like challenges. The challenge here was to put up a building and make it work.

NAN: So, this was all built from scratch?

Connecticut Valley Brewing Company in South Windsor, CT.

STEVE: Yes. I built this. I started October 2016. We finished building it last July and then we opened the taproom in October. It took about a year and a half to get everything together. We collaborated with designers and architects and went from there. So, it’s brand new, purpose-built as a brewery. We have plenty of space to do events and plenty of space to brew.

NAN: How do you know when your beer is marketable?

STEVE: Of course, people will tell you your beer is good. But you don’t know if it’s really true or not. It’s great to have a friend say they love your beer, but they’re my friend, so they’re going to tell me what I want to hear.

At one point, everyone was filling my head with ideas and telling me the beer was good. But the idea wasn’t really validated until we started contract brewing at another brewery in the state. When we started doing that people did not know who were and they were commenting about how good the beer was. That was about two years before we started on this building.

So, I was contract brewing and things were going very well. We put our beer out there and we could see the demand was high and people liked the New England-style of beer. At that point, I was already in deep with United Bank, trying to figure out how to get the money together to build the building. When they saw the product was viable and the market was growing the bank got behind the project and really pushed it.

NAN: How has your prior startup experience helped with this venture as far as developing a business plan and hiring people?

STEVE: It’s not jumping into a pool not knowing what’s happening. It’s manufacturing, and it doesn’t matter what I’m manufacturing. If you provide a good product, people are going to come back time and again.

NAN: I’ve heard there’s a good sense of camaraderie amongst the Connecticut breweries.

STEVE: Local breweries definitely help each other out. If we have an issue, we’ll call Broad Brook Brewing Company or Willimantic Brewing Company and ask questions or ask for supplies. Everyone works together. It’s a good environment.

NAN: You’ve been a business owner for some time now Tell us something we don’t know about what it’s really like to be an entrepreneur.

STEVE: It’s super stressful. You go from having it to being broke. People think you’re loaded. But you get paid and then everything is gone again. It’s just the normal stress factor of managing money, time, and resources.

NAN: How do you find balance in that? Or how do you learn to go with it?

STEVE: You get calloused. There’s nothing you can do about it. You get paid when you get paid. It just takes a different person to own and operate a business. I can’t sit in a cubicle. I’d rather have the stress and the challenges of doing this. And it’s fun to employ people. You find people you want to work with.

NAN: That’s a good tip. Any other advice?

STEVE: You find people who think they know what they’re doing, and you mold them to what you want them to do. That’s the thing, they have to be wanting and able to do a job. I’ve hired thousands of people throughout the years, so I know by seeing a person that this person would be good for that position. Even though they don’t think they are, I can mold them into that direction. You give them the opportunity to screw up, correct them, and then you make them work where they need to be.

NAN: Many breweries have been popping up throughout Connecticut. What differentiates yours?

STEVE: All breweries start at a location and they support that community and that area. That’s kind of what we’re doing here. We’re supporting this community in South Windsor.

NAN: How are you marketing?

STEVE: Social media is huge for us, it’s great with the younger crowd, but we’re looking into news print too. We also rely on word of mouth. Untapped brings us a lot of customers, too.

NAN: Where do you distribute your beer?

STEVE: We distribute throughout all of Connecticut. And we’re expanding into Massachusetts and other areas. In the future we plan to just keep pushing out to the market—of course making sure the beers are good, so people enjoy them. We’re also changing with the trends and pushing out to different market areas that will accept it.

Find out more abut Connecticut Valley Brewing Company

VISIT: ctvalleybrewing.com
FOLLOW: Facebook | Instagram | Untapped | Twitter

Joanne Berger-Sweeney, Trinity College President and Professor of Neuroscience.

Innovation Destination Hartford spoke with Joanne Berger-Sweeney, Trinity College President and Professor of Neuroscience to learn about the many ways the college supports and encourages entrepreneurship and innovative activity at the school and throughout Connecticut.

INNOVATION DESTINATION HARTFORD: What types of entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives are happening at Trinity?

JOANNE BERGER-SWEENEY: We are in the midst of implementing our bicentennial strategic plan, Summit, and for us, much of what we’re doing at this moment is entrepreneurial and innovative, in the broadest sense of the terms.

As Trinity is a liberal arts college located in a city and with an accredited engineering program, entrepreneurship and innovation are part of our DNA. The success of our alumni certainly attests to this.

As one recent example, we’ve partnered with Capital Community College to open the Liberal Arts Action Lab at 10 Constitution Plaza. This is an innovative program that matches real-world community challenges with interdisciplinary teams of students and faculty to offer concrete solutions.

As we design our new space in One Constitution Plaza, we’re looking forward to the possibilities that will open for even greater promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship, including strengthening our graduate-level offerings.

IDH: Trinity College received a portion of a $30 million CTNext Innovation Places grant. What does the college plan to do with the funding?

BERGER-SWEENEY: Yes, Trinity is a key partner in the Hartford/East Hartford Innovation Places Planning Team selected to receive a share of $30 million in statewide funding to spark economic development and investment in innovation.

Our team will receive up to $2 million in implementation grant funds in fiscal year 2018, which is the first of up to three years of renewable funding through the state-funded program administered by CTNext.

During the first year, a lot of organizational and planning work among the team members has taken place to lay the groundwork and to contribute to a growing community of innovators, entrepreneurs, and tech-based business growth. One of our primary goals is identifying partners to invest in the areas around Trinity and Hartford Hospital, to establish a thriving live/learn/work destination through investments in placemaking and small-business development.

Pop-up food festivals in the Broad Street and Washington Street corridors are being planned for May and June. The first pop-up festival took place on April 23 at Trinfo.Café on Broad Street. The festivals are a partnership between the college, Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, International Hartford, and Hartford Hospital, and their goal is to use food as a medium for building community and a sense of place. The support from CTNext has been key to spurring the collaboration and ideation that is moving Hartford and our neighborhood forward.

IDH: Can you provide some insight into the growing medical technology innovation (MedTech) district?

Trinity College President Joanne Berger-Sweeney delivers a neuroscience presentation at Trinity College.

BERGER-SWEENEY: The MedTech Innovation District initiative will create a healthcare incubator/accelerator to attract and support entrepreneurs by connecting them with various stakeholders who will support the development of medical devices, digital health technologies, and health care analytics. Stakeholder groups include clinical providers, academics, government and other regulatory bodies, and corporate and risk capital sources.

The incubator/accelerator isn’t just a physical location. It’s a density of resources attractive to startup companies and entrepreneurs. Trinity and University of Connecticut faculty, staff, and students will work directly with teams at Hartford Hospital and its Center for Simulation, Education and Innovation (CESI) to connect emerging entrepreneurs who have developed the most promising new technologies with the technical and patient care expertise needed to determine the degree to which product concepts or prototypes will be successful.

IDH: In the fall 2017 Trinity Reporter you were quoted as saying, “We want to create opportunities and the relative conditions that encourage students to stay in Connecticut, in general, and Hartford, in particular.” How is Trinity providing these opportunities?

BERGER-SWEENEY: As I mentioned earlier, at 10 Constitution Plaza, our Liberal Arts Action Lab collaboration with Capital Community College is providing a unique opportunity for college students to engage with Hartford organizations and to learn the value of collaborative problem solving. When students work with local organizations on research projects, just as when they hold internships with local companies, those experiences often lead to students accepting their first job after graduation right here in Hartford.

Another way we’re encouraging students to stay in Connecticut is by connecting them from the moment they arrive on campus to opportunities in the city of Hartford. We have a first-year system called the Bantam Network and integrating students into the life of the city is part of that program’s mission.

Trinity College also has a long and rich history of community learning and urban engagement, and the terrific work of our Center for Urban and Global Studies and our Community Learning Initiative contribute to creating the conditions for students staying in the state. Our Center for Student Success and Career Development also does a phenomenal job of connecting students with local internships and experiential opportunities in Hartford and throughout the state.

But certainly, as an institution with a national and international profile, as well as deep roots in the state of Connecticut, we’re always looking to see how we can retain more students. Given the strength of our liberal arts graduates and career opportunities in the state, I expect Trinity to become even more successful in shaping Connecticut’s workforce.

IDH: Tell us about your involvement with the Connecticut Higher Education Innovation & Entrepreneurship Working Group, which you co-chaired.

BERGER-SWEENEY: It was a real honor to co-chair the Higher Education Innovation & Entrepreneurship Working Group with Mark Ojakian. Especially exciting was the fact that it represented the first time college and university presidents in the state met as a group, bringing together 35 vastly different institutions into the same space to focus on the future.

Over the course of six months, and after four meetings and 18 site visits, there was a great deal of energy and consensus in the group about a plan for supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in the state. In particular, we all affirmed the potential of Connecticut’s ecosystem and the invaluable role of institutions of higher education, especially as we partner in new ways and leverage our collective power.

The Connecticut Higher Education Innovation & Entrepreneurship Working Group’s final report, “Entrepreneurship & Innovation in Connecticut’s Higher Education System” is available from the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges (CCIC).

IDH: Where do you see the landscape for entrepreneurial and innovative activity in Greater Hartford?

BERGER-SWEENEY: At the core of innovation are ideas, and higher education is really about ideas. It’s about taking those ideas and turning them into something that’s useful for society, part of the societal good. So, to me, innovation and entrepreneurship dovetail with higher education incredibly well.

I see this landscape as only growing, with higher education playing a core role. My hope is that the work we do collectively will be a national model of what’s possible when we’re willing to engage in creative partnerships. As a region that has inspired so many inventions and creativity over the centuries, Greater Hartford’s ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship is poised to surprise us all.

Learn more about Trinity College

VISIT: www.trincoll.edu
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Where Are They Now? Follow Up with InspireCorps

In June 2016, Innovation Destination Hartford spoke with InspireCorps Chief Innovation Officer Allison Holzer about launching a startup and the meaning of “sustainable inspiration.”

The InspireCorps team.

In August 2017, IDH connected with InspireCorps Chief Inspiration Officer Jen Grace Baron, who was a featured speaker at a MetroHartford Alliance Rising Star Breakfast “Inspirational Leadership.”

IDH checked in with the InspireCorps entrepreneurial team to find out what’s new.

INNOVATION DESTINATION HARTFORD: Give us an update.

INSPIRECORPS: Several exciting things have happened at InspireCorps since our original feature in Innovation Destination Hartford.

First, we were certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) as a women-owned business and are excited about working with companies in the future that value this recognition.

Second, we’ve expanded our company by hiring three employees and are moving into our first office space at the District New Haven in April 2018. We’re excited about this move because the space is specifically designed for startups to connect and collaborate with one another in their open community spaces. This move introduces great possibilities of working with more New Haven-based startups and companies we’ll meet in this space.

Third, we’re close to securing a publisher for our book: Inspire: Generate Extraordinary Results Through Sustainable Inspiration to be published in 2019. For this book, we interviewed nearly 100 leaders across industries and backgrounds about how they spark and sustain inspiration to be successful in their work.

IDH: Have you experienced any major pivots since we featured your story?

INSPIRECORPS: One major pivot we’ve experienced is a business strategy shift across our different offerings. For the last four years, we focused on pursuing leadership and team development projects with in-tact teams in mid- to large-size companies, hospitals, and higher education institutions. While we provided executive coaching for the last four years, coaching engagements have primarily emerged organically, from client requests.

Our strategy shift involves more directly developing our coaching part of our business. The executive coaching field has been expanding in recent years and companies today, more than ever, are seeking highly qualified, credentialed, and experienced coaches to work with their employees and leaders—from those newly promoted to leadership roles all the way to those at the highest levels.

We created a coaching service that includes evidence-based content and resources and tools curated by the coach to create a high-value learning and development experience for the client. We’re excited about offering leadership coaching as a more intentional pathway into the content, strategies, and tools we already bring to teams. We hope to see many of our clients benefiting from both team-level development and individual coaching. They are most impactful coupled together.

IDH: How are you building a customer base?

INSPIRECORPS: We’ve been fortunate to work with cutting-edge leaders and organizations since InspireCorps launched five years ago and to have long-term partnerships with our clients, year after year. As we look forward, we continue to deepen our work with our amazing clients and seek opportunities to meet and partner with new leaders and organizations that know a strong people strategy is an essential component of a strong business strategy.

IDH: Where do you see the entrepreneurial landscape heading?

INSPIRECORPS: In business over the last several decades, we have moved from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy to a purpose-based economy. More than ever, consumers today are driven to make economic decisions based on their personal values.

With purpose-driven and tech-savvy iGen and Millennials entering and maturing in the workforce, companies are learning they need to focus on their internal culture—the services and values they live by with their employees—just as much as they think about the services and values they provide to their clients.

We’re excited about these trends because we work with companies to align their internal culture with their systems and processes and help them grow through their people, thereby developing the agility necessary to manage today’s dynamic and disruptive environment.

IDH: Tell us about the importance of encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation throughout Connecticut.

INSPIRECORPS: As we are moving into our new space at the District in New Haven in April, we are committed more than ever to collaborating with and supporting entrepreneurship and innovation in Connecticut. It is through creative partnerships with local companies that businesses in Connecticut will thrive.

IDH: Aside from funding, what do you need most to move your company forward?

INSPIRECORPS: One of the things we need most right now is exposure to organizations and companies that understand the value of creating and igniting an innovative people strategy. We want to be in front of people who are ready to invest in larger-scale projects to transform the way people drive success in their organizations.

In addition, we’re also looking for opportunities, either with a partner client or a technology partner, to build out an innovative online/hybrid platform for our clients. We envision it being most useful at first for coaching.

InspireCorps provides high-level, high-touch customized coaching offerings, and haven’t found a learning management system or other system that meets our needs. As a result, we would love to create one on our own! We also want to collaborate with a technology partner to create virtual and 3D coaching tools for our clients.

IDH: What’s next?

INSPIRECORPS: We’re excited to grow with an emphasis on local clients over the next several years. With our book Inspire: Generate Extraordinary Results Through Sustainable Inspiration coming out in 2019, we plan to grow the keynotes/speaking arm of our company. We already have several innovative keynote offerings.

We’re planning to grow thoughtfully in the years ahead. While we aim high in our goals, we’re also paying attention to maintaining the unique culture we have created at InspireCorps.

Learn more about InspireCorps

READ: Startup Focuses on Sustainable Inspiration and Leadership Agility
VISIT: www.inspirecorps.com
FOLLOW: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter

Upward Hartford Founder & CEO Shana Schlossberg (left) was interviewed by Cynthia Dokas Whipple, Director of Graduate Support and Admissions at Covenant Prep School in Hartford at the She Means Business kickoff event May 3, 2018.

Serial entrepreneur and Upward Hartford Founder & CEO Shana Schlossberg is the first to admit she has no fear. In a candid interview, Shana told a crowd of women entrepreneurs—which she defines as “forward thinkers”—about her entrepreneurial journey and what ultimately sparked her interest in helping revitalize Hartford.

It all took place at the kickoff She Means Business event, which took place Thursday, May 3 at Upward Hartford. The event was the brainchild of General Manager Samanatha Wanagel, who began working with Upward Hartford in November 2017.

“Very early on, we realized we needed a line of professional events for Hartford’s women in business. And we knew we wanted it to be different, with unconventional and gutsy content,” explained Samantha.

“We’re crafting something that weaves women together, from all avenues of business. The collaboration will strengthen the city’s professional female community and set the standard for the next generation of Hartford’s female leaders,” she added.

Attendees enjoyed networking before the interview began. Cynthia Dokas Whipple, Director of Graduate Support and Admissions at Covenant Prep School in Hartford was on hand to ask Shana about her experience, beginning with how she became an entrepreneur.

AN ENCOURAGED ENTREPRENEUR

Shana admitted she was always “scheming” as a child. She says she was always encouraged by her father, who told her she could be anything she wanted. She shared about her formative years, when her interests in everything from technology to opera singing and neuroscience had her travelling the world.

Shana recalled a moment thinking, “I wish I had an idea,” which she said really sparked her journey as an entrepreneur. And, she emphasized, entrepreneurship is “a state of mind.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF MENTORSHIP

Shana is careful with the word “mentor,” which she feels can be misconstrued. To her it means someone you trust, someone who has your back, and someone who shapes you as a person. And not just in business—someone who supports, helps, and directs.

And, she pointed out that a mentor is different than a subject matter expert.

“Mentors help you when you’re successful—and when you’re not,” she underscored. “Will your mentor still be there if you fail?”

Shana said, “Finding the right people to talk to is a shortcut to success.”

In terms of finding mentors, Shana said, “I look for people more successful than me.” She added, “I’ve been lucky to find those people in my life. They are the biggest reason for my success.”

Peer-to-peer mentors also have an important place, she noted. “Entrepreneurs need people in the same boat—someone who’s gone through what you’re going through.”

Shana joked, “I want to go back and mentor my younger self!”

“Entrepreneurship is a state of mind,” says Upward Hartford Founder & CEO Shana Schlossberg.

FAILURE IS A MEASUREMENT

When asked about her growth as an entrepreneur, Shana said she has learned about her relationship with failure. She admitted when she was younger, “I could not fail.

She says it was an enlightening moment when she accepted failure as part of the journey.

“Failure is a measurement,” she said. “If you don’t embrace it, you can’t have success.”

Often, she notes, failure is based on fear. “I’m a fearless woman,” she proclaimed.

INSPIRATION

Shana says her inspiration comes from people like herself who are self-made. It also comes from people she has helped along the way. “Everyone has their own story. Seeing someone overcome the difficult is awe-inspiring.”

UPWARD HARTFORD

How did Shana end up in Hartford? “I wasn’t looking for Hartford,” she nonchalantly said. “An event brought me here. They wanted me to solve Hartford.” This was back in 2015.

Shana added, “I’m a social entrepreneur. I like to work on things that matter. I realized Hartford has what it needs. It’s fixable.”

So, she set a goal: We need to fix Hartford. “The only thing to fix a city is technology,” she said. “And it had to start with a space where people can collaborate.”

That’s how the idea for Upward Hartford (originally Innovate Hartford) came to be. “It looks like a co-working space, but it’s not. We had to call it something. It’s really a nucleus,” Shana explained.

The first She Means Business event at Upward Hartford was well attended by many types of women entrepreneurs.

Established and new startups work out of Upward Hartford. The space attracts not just startups but artists, insurance companies, and so forth, she notes. And Upward Hartford helps make mentor connections.

“We believe in change for Hartford,” Shana said. And that all starts with an idea. That’s where the Idea Wall started. It’s a place to share ideas, a place where conversations start.

“How do ideas start?” Shana asked. “Someone has one, and someone needs it. That’s how startups form.”

After the interview, Shana answered questions about how to find your direction, where to find funding, and how the entrepreneurial experience differs for women and men.

The event was well-received and Upward Hartford hopes it will be the first in a series.

Find out more about Upward Hartford

VISIT: www.upwardhartford.com
FOLLOW: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter

One year ago, I wrote in the Hartford Business Journal that “Hartford stands at a tipping point: Bankruptcy? Revival? Or both?” And I focused on how common negative perceptions must be rebutted. David Griggs, the new President of the MetroHartford Alliance, observed recently in his debut presentation before 400 business and community leaders that “a community’s positive self-image is key to advancing economic revitalization.”

In tours of Hartford that I lead regularly for Leadership Greater Hartford, we see so much positive change in the last year that the city’s future looks brighter than in decades. The dramatic transformation underway makes Aetna’s departure announcement last year seem like a bad dream. CVS, Aetna’s expected new parent, understands Hartford’s strength as an insurance “center of excellence” where Aetna will thrive. The threat of the city’s bankruptcy is now history, and the state and major insurers are ready to bolster Hartford’s fiscal position.

In a fascinating twist, today’s rapidly expanding entrepreneurial spirit strongly recalls 19^th-century Hartford. Historians today call Hartford the innovation epicenter, the “Silicon Valley,” of 19^th-century American industrialization. Between the birth of the U.S. patent system in 1790 and 1930, Connecticut residents were awarded more patents per capita than anywhere else in the United States.

Today, numerous new “incubator/accelerator” launching pads build upon Hartford’s traditional strengths in insurance, financial services, and advanced manufacturing and production. The University of Connecticut and the University of Hartford have collaborated with business leaders on the Downtown InsurTech program that launched the StartupBootcamp accelerator. Working with Techstars, Stanley Black & Decker’s Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence in Downtown will accelerate its global Industry 4.0 “smart factory” initiative, and UTC has opened a state-of-the-art manufacturing innovation center at its Pratt & Whitney campus in East Hartford.

Upward Hartford and reSET Social Enterprise Trust exemplify the think tanks that assist entrepreneurs, large and small, in launching new cutting-edge products. Their rich menu of services includes funding sources, mentoring, periodic competitions and public recognition. reSET is unique in stimulating new enterprises that serve the common good.

National publicity about Connecticut’s highly skilled and educated workforce, Hartford in particular, is reinforcing the city’s momentum. Connecticut boasts New England’s highest percent (72%) of advanced manufacturing jobs. Fortune magazine reported that the Hartford metro area has America’s fourth highest number of digital tech-related jobs. And with more than 50% college-educated millennials, the Hartford area ranks sixth in the nation. It is understandable why Infosys announced plans for a major tech/innovation hub in Hartford that will create 1000 high tech jobs by 2022.

Job training, strategically focused on present/future workforce needs, is fast complementing Hartford’s many corporate and pubic internship programs. Goodwin College exemplifies institutions with specialized degree programs in manufacturing technology and other jobs in highest demand. The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving has announced major grants to boost employment among Hartford residents and an innovation grant to the Hartford Public Library’s “Crossroads to Connectivity Project” that narrows the city’s “digital divide.” These kinds of efforts reach down to the Hartford Boys & Girls Clubs, which initiated a new program to promote college/career readiness.

The vitality of Hartford as a place to live, work and play continues to unfold in highly visible ways. CIL’s renovation of the historic Capewell Lofts, their housing/retail plans at the Main/Park street entrance to Park Street’s vibrant Hispanic commercial area, and Spectra Boutique Apartment’s unique amenities (including a theater) that will be replicated in the apartments being created at Pearl and Trumbull streets are transforming housing in the city.

Complete new multi-purpose neighborhoods are on the drawing boards adjacent to the Dunkin’ Donuts Stadium and along Capitol Avenue. New residents and the 3,000+ members of the new Downtown UConn Hartford campus community are generating more “feet on the street.”

Merchants and Downtown institutions are responding; TheaterWorks plans a $ 2.5 million renovation, and free admissions are available to the Wadsworth Atheneum and to Hartford Stage in partnership with Hartford Public Library. Infinity Music Hall and Sea Tea Improv Comedy Theater are huge draws, and new restaurants like The Republic, Sorella, and Spectra Café are three of many.

This dynamic transformation is strong fodder for revamping our historic self-image.  And that strong and proud belief in who we are will be the foundation for more ambitious and comprehensive goals than ever before.

About the Author
Greg Andrews is the Program Director for Leadership Greater Hartford’s Executive Orientation Program and Hartford Encounter Tours.

This story by Staff Writer John Stearns originally appeared in the Hartford Business Journal May 14, 2018

reSET—a staple of the Hartford coworking and business mentoring and accelerator scene for entrepreneurs since it first opened a physical space in 2013—has had to share the entrepreneurial startup stage since the larger Upward Hartford opened downtown in mid-2017 with a high-profile location and investors.

But even though they play in the same sandbox of attracting and helping grow innovative startups, the two organizations espouse cooperation over competition for the greater good of trying to build Hartford’s confidence and reputation as a fledgling hotbed of startup activity.

Ojala Naeem is Managing Director at reSET.

In fact, reSET held its holiday party in December with Upward Hartford’s, aiming to connect entrepreneurs and exploit each group’s contacts as much as possible.

“We’re also promoting their events and vice-versa, making sure we’re there to support (them) in whatever way we can,” said Ojala Naeem, managing director of reSET, coming off its latest Venture Showcase May 10 highlighting the top eight startups that emerged from its 2018 Impact Accelerator program. The top three, chosen by judges, won investments after pitching their business models to an audience of founders, investors, and community and corporate stakeholders.

“At the end of the day, we want this (entrepreneurial) ecosystem to be better,” Naeem said. “We want Upward Hartford to succeed because if Upward Hartford doesn’t succeed, it’s going to set the entrepreneurial ecosystem behind. Same thing with us, if reSET weren’t to succeed, it would set the entrepreneurial ecosystem behind for Upward Hartford.”

Upward Hartford’s New York-based founder and CEO, Shana Schlossberg, said the two definitely are not competitors.

“We’re very good friends with Ojala,” Schlossberg said, noting that a company in Upward Hartford’s coworking space from Israel was in reSET’s accelerator program earlier this year. She also introduced a reSET company needing insurance contacts to those people at Upward Hartford.

“So there is a lot of collaboration and I believe there will be more,” she said.

The two also are working to address what Schlossberg called Hartford “pain points,” the need to strengthen and grow the angel investor network to keep promising startups from seeking money in markets like Boston or New York and relocating there instead.

“If the small companies do not get proper funding, then most of them will die or they will leave,” she said, noting she and Naeem have discussed the need to “pitch portfolios” to investors and broadcast that there’s not one good company in Hartford to invest in, but many between respective accelerators. Also, investors’ money can stretch further here than in Boston or New York, she said.

DUAL MISSIONS

The nonprofit reSET, whose roots were planted in 2007 by Kate Emery of The Walker Group when she transitioned her Farmington company into a social enterprise, emerged later as a social enterprise incubator to help impact-driven businesses, launching business-development programs in its first space on Pratt Street downtown in 2013. It has since moved to the Parkville neighborhood and widened its net to include all startups, many of which also have a public benefit component.

“When we got started, our goal was to really create more social-enterprise activity,” Naeem said. “That being said, we also recognize that Connecticut as a whole is really behind the curve when it comes to entrepreneurship.”

While social enterprise remains in reSET’s DNA, “We said, ‘OK, in order to build a strong and effective social enterprise ecosystem, we need to have a strong and effective entrepreneurial ecosystem to begin with,’” Naeem said. Whether one’s a social entrepreneur or not, “Your needs from a business perspective are all the same,” she said, adding there’s no impact without profit.

Coworking is a small share of reSET’s business model, focusing more on programs and services for entrepreneurs—including its business mentoring, internships connecting students with startups, and accelerators—from its 5,900-square-foot, two-floor space in the emerging and eclectic Parkville district.

The for-profit Upward Hartford, occupying 27,453 square feet in the Stilts Building at Church and Main streets, touts significant coworking and networking space, events and, as of early this year, an annual InsurTech Accelerator, part of what’s called Hartford InsurTech Hub, run by London-based Startupbootcamp to bring innovation to the city’s insurance industry and spawn new InsurTech companies and jobs locally.

InsurTech is a key focus of Upward Hartford. The InsurTech Accelerator is funded by grants from CTNext, a quasi-public entity that oversees the state’s new Innovation Places program and which picked InsurTech as a sector to grow. The accelerator also receives matching grants from insurers and others.

“Entrepreneurship is a state of mind,” says Upward Hartford Founder & CEO Shana Schlossberg.

Separately, an organic community, InsurTech Hartford, has arisen at Upward Hartford featuring a community of insurance executives and others interested in advancing the sector.

Schlossberg said Upward Hartford, which celebrated its first anniversary May 9, is much more than a collaborative workspace.

“Our mission is to create; we’re an innovation hub,” she said, aiming to help Hartford create a critical mass of innovations similar to those in innovation capitals like Silicon Valley.

“We will do everything that will get us to that goal,” she said. “We’ll do every partnership, every hackathon, we’ll support any startup and every startup that wants to set up, that wants connections.”

Upward Harford and reSET are far from the only startup/incubator/accelerator games in the region or state. Others include:

• UConn’s Technology Incubation Program in Farmington focused on bioscience startups;
• UConn’s Connecticut Center of Entrepreneurship and Innovation;
• The Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology Inc. in East Hartford;
• The Accelerator for Biosciences in Connecticut, a statewide effort.

Jessica Dodge, program manager of CTNext, estimated there are dozens of coworking, accelerator and incubator spaces statewide, including a broad spectrum of university affiliates and private businesses with incubators and accelerators.

“All of those things as a collective whole are really good indicators that something is working,” Dodge said. “There is the need to continue to spark new ideas to support the growing ecosystem of entrepreneurs.”

With the various industry-specific efforts underway to advance bioscience, medical devices and insurance technology, among others, Naeem sees a nice space for reSET.

“I think reSET’s still the only organization that’s catering to a broad industry range of early stage startups,” she said.

For Schlossberg, the more organizations nursing innovation, the better. It makes each stronger and creates a powerful team overall.

Naeem said more entrepreneurs are emerging in the area, in part due to the services and programs geared to them.

“Because there is an increase in talent and caliber of these companies, you’re seeing the need for entities like Upward Hartford and reSET (to) exist, which means there’s plenty to go around,” she said.

Learn more about reSET

READ: Making an Impact on Greater Hartford’s Entrepreneur Community
VISIT: resetco.org
FOLLOW: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter

Learn more about Upward Harford

READ: Upward Hartford CEO Encourages Women Entrepreneurs
VISIT: www.upwardhartford.com
FOLLOW: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter

This article by Jessica Mcbride, University of Connecticut, originally appeared in Phys.org April 25, 2018.

Mattershift CEO Rob McGinnis (front) and UConn associate professor of chemical and biomedical engineering, Jeff McCutcheon. (Photo courtesy: Sean Flynn/UConn)

When Rob McGinnis needed a well-equipped lab for his startup company, his graduate school friend, Jeff McCutcheon, associate professor of chemical and biomedical engineering, suggested he apply for UConn’s Technology Incubation Program (TIP) at the Storrs campus.

The lab gave McGinnis the research facilities and access to other University resources that he needed to launch his business. He developed carbon nanotube technology that will have multiple, far-reaching business applications.

“UConn is far ahead of other institutions,” says McGinnis, who met McCutcheon when they were both at Yale University working on their doctorates. “It’s not just the physical space that provides value. I am pleased to be treated as a member of the University community.”

McGinnis joined TIP when he formed Mattershift, a company that designs and manufactures nanotube membranes for carbon-zero fuels, optimized air and water, and precision medicine. The company seeks to convert carbon dioxide from the air into fuels, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, and construction materials without using fossil fuels as inputs.

McGinnis sought to find a way to make carbon nanotube membranes—which he calls a “wonder material”— in a way so they could be mass produced. The technology had been around for about a decade when he started his company.

“This technology gives us a level of control over the material world that we’ve never had before,” McGinnis says. “We can choose which molecules can pass through our membranes and what happens to them when they do.”

Currently, the company is working to remove carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into fuels, a task that has been done using conventional technology, but is too expensive to be practical.

“Using our tech, I think we’ll be able to produce carbon-zero gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels that are cheaper than fossil fuels,” says McGinnis.

McGinnis didn’t share intellectual property with McCutcheon or explain how he cracked the code. But McCutcheon tested the technology and confirmed its accuracy. McCutcheon, who owns less than a 1% stake in Mattershift, says his credibility as a scientist is paramount because he has a reputation to maintain.

“I enjoy serving as a consultant and as a member of their Scientific Advisory Board,” says McCutcheon. “But as with any new tech that comes into the membrane field, I am going to be extremely critical. Mattershift needs someone like me to be impartial evaluating their technology. I can be that person since I don’t work with competing forms of technology.”

In today’s environment, a good idea is not enough to garner research and development funding from some sources, McCutcheon says. Entrepreneurs need this type of unbiased review to prove that their theory works. They also need partners to publish this work in the scientific literature and seek grants.

McGinnis says he benefits from proximity to researchers like McCutcheon and highly trained student talent. McGinnis, who says he “lives in a sea of risk,” says he appreciates the resources offered through TIP. Universities typically offer startups some desks with laptops, he says.

“Very few places provide material science space for a startup,” says McGinnis. Unlike some universities, UConn provided the lab space and assistance with no strings attached. His inventions and intellectual property belong to him exclusively, the entrepreneur says, adding, “There’s no attempt to try to own it.”

McCutcheon and his students benefit as well.

“I was glad to be part of it. I was excited to see a startup from the inside, and I learned a lot about not only the business aspects, but how technology is vetted by different members of the finance community,” McCutcheon says. “Having Rob around gave me a sounding board for my ideas and I learned how the two groups, academics and entrepreneurs, with divergent incentives, could work together for mutual benefit.”

There are more tangible benefits as well. The group published a paper March 9 in Science Advances. And, one of McCutcheon’s graduate students, Kevin Reimund, from East Haven, Connecticut, worked or McGinnis as an assistant for two years, gaining real-world experience before pursuing his Ph.D. with another one of Mattershift’s advisors, Benny Freeman, professor of chemical engineering at the University of Texas, Austin.

Mattershift has completed development of its programmable molecular gateway technology, and the company has already booked its first sales to Trevi Systems of Petaluma, California. It will ship products later this year for use in a seawater desalination process.

“Academics should seek to work with someone like Rob,” says McCutcheon. “He’s a pure entrepreneur. He offers me a window into a world I know little about.”

Interested in learning more?

READ: Startup scales up carbon nanotube membranes to make carbon-zero fuels for less than fossil fuels
VISIT: www.mattershift.com
FOLLOW: Instagram | Twitter

MetroHartford Alliance investors gathered on May 5 at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts to welcome the Mr. and Mrs. David Griggs to Hartford. (Photo courtesy Nick Cinea Photography LLC)

David Griggs was named President and CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance in February 2018. Since then, he’s been hard at work listening to the needs of the region and emphasizing the MetroHartford Alliance mission. Innovation Destination Hartford Website Curator Nan Price sat down with David to learn more about his efforts and vision for the organization and region.

NAN PRICE: You have an impressive history of fostering job creation and economic growth in your prior roles as Vice President, Business Investment and Research at the Greater Minneapolis St. Paul Regional Economic Development Partnership and Business Development Director with Buffalo Niagara Enterprise. How do you plan to bring those types of initiatives to Greater Hartford?

DAVID GRIGGS: I plan to follow a lot of the same processes used in both Buffalo and Minneapolis St. Paul, which were research-driven.

It starts with understanding our sales and value proposition to the industries we’re trying to attract. And then ground that in solid research and run it through a robust marketing campaign, which includes a lot of feet on the ground visits to companies where there are site selectors and corporate influencers.

The goal is to not only deliver a message, but get feedback about our message, which we can then refine and re-calibrate. Then we can continue to go out to the market with a message about why you should consider Hartford as a place that meets your business needs—whether that is early-stage or growth.

NAN: It’s interesting you used the word “message.” I read you’re on a mission to “globalize the region’s economic message.” What does that mean? What is Hartford’s message and how can we get the word out?

DAVID: In terms of what we do at the MetroHartford Alliance, we are developing a unique message that is relevant to the Hartford region. Again, we need the research. We know we’re great in the insurance and financial services, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing industries, but we don’t have enough data to support what exactly about each of those industries is great here.

For example, what part of the future of insurance will be done here? Regarding aerospace, we need to find holes in our supply chain. We can do to a lot of research to understand the opportunities and then effectively take those opportunities and deliver them to a global marketplace.

Our focus needs to be less convention and visitors bureau-type messaging about Hartford being a great place to live, work, or play. It needs to be more of a focused message to very specific industries about why they need to be in Hartford if they want to prosper in the U.S. marketplace in their industry.

NAN: How can Hartford attract global companies to the region?

DAVID: The startup scene becomes extremely important to Hartford as we look at delivering a global message and trying to attract global companies. Sometimes startups are acquisition targets. It’s no surprise companies will buy startups because they see an innovative approach to an issue they’re trying to resolve. Other times, companies will buy small startups and allow them to continue doing what they’re doing but with a larger war chest behind them.

Here in Hartford, you’re seeing a lot of the same activity. I’m starting to go through a process to begin to talk to everyone and catalog all the activities happening in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The MetroHartford Alliance needs to be able to adequately speak about the activity in our region, pull it all together, and build a regional message we can push out to the world about all the activities going on—and there are a lot. Hartford is a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship, and we need to tell that story.

NAN: That’s the overall mission of the MetroHartford Alliance and Innovation Destination Hartford: Showcasing our resources and making people aware of everything that’s here in Hartford—and why this is a great place to not only start your business but to stay and grow your business.

DAVID: Absolutely agree. We need to catalog all of it. We also need to show we’re capable of helping companies grow, which is hopefully the next step for a lot of companies that go through these accelerator and incubator programs, to get to a point where they need to scale up. Some regions do really well helping companies scale up and some don’t. The ones that don’t lose all the momentum they’ve got with their startups because they will move to another city that can help them scale up.

Again, we need to have a complete ecosystem for companies to begin their journey and find all the help they need as they go through the beginning challenges of launching a startup to a point where they need help and expertise to scale up. We need to have those resources here in our community as well.

Hartford needs to have the complete ecosystem—and we can’t have the complete ecosystem for every possible company in every possible industry. We need to figure out what we’re really great at and make it greater. Not necessarily put all our eggs in one basket, but maybe have five eggs we’re incubating as opposed to trying to incubate hundreds of possible companies.

NAN: With regard to higher education, how can we retain students and encourage them to become a part of the community here in Greater Hartford?

DAVID: The generation coming out of school now wants to feel they’re part of something bigger, that they are helping to make change, and that what they’re doing actually matters.

Hartford is a great place for people with those types of focus because a little bit can go a long way here. And when people feel they are part of something bigger than themselves they will stay.

Getting undergraduates from the University of Connecticut, Trinity, the University of Hartford, and other schools entrenched in the future of our region by getting them involved with our companies and our nonprofits is in some regard key to us being able to retain them after graduation, which is what we want to do.

Exporting all our knowledge is not a good plan for the future. Figuring out how we’ll retain the talent coming out of the universities and colleges is important. That is our future.

And it’s no different than what we need to do to attract companies. We need to find out what they want. We need to find out if our region can support what they want. And we need to promote it. If it’s people we’re trying to attract, we need to understand what they want in their community and what will entice them to stay here and contribute to our community.

With both companies and people, we need to understand what they’re looking for. Do we have it? Can we develop it? If so, how do we market and sell it? And, how do we present it to them in a form they can consume? Because everyone consumes information differently. Some people read the newspaper. Some people get their news from social media. So, we need to know how our target market consumes data and then provide them with a message they’re looking for in those mediums.

NAN: As far as attracting people, why did Hartford choose you, and why did you choose Hartford?

DAVID: I think coming from a market like Minneapolis-St. Paul, the similarities between our two markets are there. We both have globally leading industries. We both had marketing campaigns that weren’t necessarily being run by us within our region. With Minneapolis-St. Paul, the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Iowa and others were telling our story to business prospects, because Minneapolis-St. Paul wasn’t out aggressively and actively telling their story. Minnesota was. Minneapolis-St. Paul wasn’t.

It’s very similar to what we have here, where the state of Connecticut is telling the story, but Hartford as a region hasn’t been. So, we have been relying on others to tell our story the same way Minneapolis-St. Paul was allowing others to tell theirs.

I would imagine that had something to do with why Hartford chose me.

When I was working in Minneapolis-St. Paul within six years, we took the market from zero to arguably being one of the leading economic development organizations in the country. In that time, we attracted a good number of jobs to the market and increased the awareness and perception of the market. The same game plan can be done here in Hartford. Economic development is a team sport, and it is vital that we partner with our business community to attract talent here and retain what we have in this market.

I can’t guarantee the thousands of jobs we were able to attract in Minneapolis-St. Paul, it’s a smaller market and the opportunities scale accordingly. But, the activities and the process would remain the same and the expected outcomes should be fully and measurably the same.

NAN: And the other side of the question—what drew you to Hartford?

DAVID: For all the same reasons I was attracted to Minnesota. Professionally, I want a challenge. I want to show my value and, in a market like Minneapolis-St. Paul, I was able to show my value.

I truly believe that here in Hartford the wave has already formed. And this is what you want, isn’t it? As the wave has formed and you can see it, you want to get on top of it, but to do that you’ve got to be in a spot where maybe nobody else saw it. But I see it. We have all the assets in place to make Hartford one of the most viable business communities in the country.

The things we have going on in Hartford are all the right things a region needs to do to create a wave and to reinvent itself—or at least reposition itself. That’s where we are here in Hartford, and I am proud to be a part of that vision.

So, why would I be attracted here? Well, why wouldn’t you be attracted to Hartford? When you do the proper analysis and you see the potential, you want to be a part of it.

NAN: In terms of leadership and developing a company culture, any advice for others?

DAVID: I’m in a position to take not give.

We’ve got great people who work at the MetroHartford Alliance. They want to do great things—and they’re certainly capable of it. My job is to simply empower them to do great things and give them the resources, so they can be all they want to be and do all the things they want to do for our region.

If I’m successful, it won’t be because of me. It will be because of all the people who work here, who partner with us, who we work with, and who we follow. The MetroHartford Alliance doesn’t always have to be a leader. We can also support and partner on initiatives that further grow the Hartford Region. We need to play our role, and that role can evolve. We can and will evolve as an organization.

I’m trying to do a lot of listening and then pull what I’ve learned back into the organization, because there’s not a cookie-cutter solution. We can’t just take what we had in Minneapolis-St. Paul and put it in Hartford. What this is will be a uniquely Hartford solution. It will take a uniquely Hartford approach.

It will take us a little time to make those evolutions. It’s not even as much an evolution as it is shifting our focus a little bit from what we were doing a year ago to what we could be doing a year from now. It will take small course corrections as opposed to a complete reversal.

Our mission hasn’t changed. The MetroHartford Alliance is still out trying to attract jobs, talent, and capital to our region. The approach we’ll take to accomplish those goals will shift a little bit. But the mission hasn’t. I think that’s important to note.

Learn more about the MetroHartford Alliance

VISIT: www.metrohartford.com
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Hog River Brewing Company Founder and Owner Ben Braddock and his wife Joy look forward to opening their brewery in Hartford’s Parkville neighborhood in spring 2016.

Innovation Destination Hartford spoke with Ben Braddock, Founder and Owner of Hog River Brewing Company in December 2015, before the brewery opened. Since then, Hog River has become a local destination for craft beer and entertainment.

IDH recently checked in with Ben to find out what’s new.

BEN BRADDOCK: Since opening August 20, 2016 we have been moving forward with a full head of steam. From a production standpoint, we’ve more than doubled our brewing capacity while keeping more than 90% of our sales in house. We’ve been inching closer to distribution, which should become more of a reality as we increase our capacity.

As a business, my wife, Joy left Cigna to join our team on a full-time basis. We also hired a taproom manager and recently added another brewer to our staff to expand our product portfolio.

IDH: Have you experienced any major pivots since we featured your story?

BEN: I can’t say we’ve had any major pivots. We’ve stayed on track and even exceeded our own expectations. For the first two years, we’ve been busy trying to keep up with demand, which we see as a huge success.

We started Hog River brewing very traditional beers and, while tradition is important to us, we have found that we need to continue to evolve to stay relevant in an extremely competitive industry.

Going forward, we’ll continue to brew traditional beer styles while incorporating some really neat and innovative projects. We have a lot on the horizon and we look forward to sharing new products with our customers.

IDH: Have you been involved with any startup resources in the region?

BEN: We worked with SCORE in the beginning. We had a wonderful group of people who helped us secure financing. They were a tremendous resource to have on our side.

IDH: It seems obvious, but how are you building a customer base?

BEN: We’ve been fortunate to build our business on word of mouth and strategic partnerships. We are a boutique brewery that relies on people spreading the word.

Sometimes it amazes me that we are where we are given the challenges we face as an urban brewery. We have a lot working against us, but we get people here to Parkville to drink great beer while enjoying food trucks or participating in the great events that take place in our neighborhood including our Twang Thursday music series or the KNOW GOOD Market.

Parkville has a ton of talent and we are happy to partner with many of the small businesses in the neighborhood including IdleWilde Printing, Parkville Sounds, and Breakfast Lunch & Dinner.

IDH: Where do you see the entrepreneurial landscape heading?

BEN: To be successful, entrepreneurs need to take the bull by the horns and blaze their own path. This is what we see every day in Parkville. Creative minds are challenging the old ways of doing things and creating new opportunities. I firmly believe that entrepreneurship and small businesses make a difference. Entrepreneurs have drive and passion with so much riding on the line. These are the people who can make change.

IDH: Tell us about the importance of encouraging entrepreneurship in Connecticut.

BEN: Creating change and challenging what’s “normal” is extremely important to the evolution of society. Entrepreneurs with an endless need to succeed can make a difference in so many ways.

IDH: Aside from funding, what do you need most to move your company forward?

The October Hartford Entrepreneur Hangout event at Hog River Brewing Company was well attended.

BEN: We need more people to support small business in Hartford. There’s a huge network of motivated people trying to make a difference in Hartford. We need more people to give the city a chance by pushing their comfort zone while trying something new.

Small businesses are the heartbeat of this city and people will never hear of them unless they make an effort. We ask that people come experience what is going on for themselves and make up their own mind about what Hartford really is. I think people will be surprised in what they find. This is alone will help create a vibrant city culture and successful small businesses.

IDH: What’s next?

BEN: We’ve outgrown our production space and we’re looking to take over more space in 1429 Park Street to expand our product portfolio. In the upcoming months, we’ll be adding a sour program as well as a barrel aging program.

Beyond that, we have ton of innovative ideas that will challenge people’s perception about craft beer. We are also investing in our Twang Thursday music series presented by Wise Old Moon frontman Connor Millican. This unique music series attracts artists from all over New England and we hope to establish Hog River as a premiere music venue in Hartford for original artists.

Find out more about Hog River Brewing Company

READ: Entrepreneur Brewer: Hog River Brewing Company
VISIT: hogriverbrewing.com
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