Transmissions LLC wins State of Ohio Edison Technology Award (November - 2005)
Transmissions has been awarded the Ohio technology innovators award for 2005 for its work in translation solutions for business.  Olivier Fischer, President, received his award from Governor Taft on November 21, 2005.  Transmissions LLC becomes the 4^th HCBC client to ever receive this award.

The event was held at the Hyatt Regency on September 22, 2005.

Graduation Day has always been a “Celebratory Day” for HCBC and this year’s graduating class has provided us with many memories.  This year’s graduating class set a couple of new standards for performance:                  

• Most aggregate annual revenues of any HCBC graduating class;
• Most jobs created by any HCBC graduating class

This year’s graduating class includes:

HCBC wishes to say “Thank You and Good Luck” to the graduating entrepreneurs who’ve shared time with us. 

The Hamilton County Business Center makes something Ohio needs desperately: new companies. And that's because new companies make new jobs.  Our region can feel a sense of celebration over the 16-year-old business incubator's roughly 70 percent success rate in starting new companies, and its inspiring new success story. This year, three businesses the center is nurturing and guiding have hit a million dollars in revenue even before leaving the center to set out fully on their own.

Politicians and policymakers can talk about job creation and a recovering economy, but efforts like the business incubator really get the job done.  Fledgling businesses apply to be part of the program, which accepts six to 12 each year. They have to be young, innovative and growth-minded. Once chosen, they receive a variety of supports. They can move into the business center's Norwood facility, where they'll pay affordable rent that rises gradually until they leave the program after five years.

Center director Patrick Longo says besides serving as a hothouse for the young businesses, the center functions as an "entrepreneurial dorm." The networking, cross-pollination of ideas and purchases of one another's services that occurs is a great asset to the new companies.

And then there's the easy access to support services. Each company has a coach, who stays abreast of its progress and offers guidance along the way. For example, Longo and business manager Mary Myers help the companies set goals, evaluate progress, locate the help of interns and co-op students, plan for staffing and implement marketing plans.  The center connects the companies to sales, marketing, accounting and lending experts, helping staffs develop a circle of service providers. It hosts networking coffee breaks to help them grow business, and connects them to local universities for additional support.

Founded in 1989 as the brainchild of David Main, who heads the Hamilton County Development Co., the center has had 100 graduates and has 47 current clients. Those clients employ 315 people and, in the last year, had payrolls of $9.5 million and revenues of $26.5 million.

The three new million-plus revenue companies are DminSite, an e-commerce business; the Matrix Cos., which investigate disability claims; and XCG, an engineering planning firm. All have moved or are moving from the Norwood "nest" to their own sites.  Nationally, the odds are stacked against startup companies. So coming alongside to provide them support is a real-world way to nurture the American dream.

We hope policymakers on both sides of the river realize anew the power of this modest, successful effort. Its annual budget is $725,000, generated by income from the incubator companies' rent and a $275,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Development's Edison

Technology Program (www.odod.ohio.gov/tech/edison).

For the jobs, revenues and inspiration the business incubator generates, it's one amazing buy.

Copyright 2005, The Enquirer

NORWOOD - It's been a landmark year for the Hamilton County Business Center. Three of the incubator's fledgling businesses have hit seven figure revenue levels and are leaving the nest. Nurturing viable businesses and preparing them to fly solo is the goal of the center, housed in a renovated manufacturing facility that adjoins the Cintas Center parking lot. In the center's 16-year history, it has seen about 100 young companies graduate. But never have three companies soared to such lofty sales levels prior to taking flight.  "We're very, very excited," said Patrick Longo, director of the center. "All three companies hit a million in revenues while they were in our building."

The three fledgling companies – XCG Consultants, DMinSite and the Matrix Cos. - attribute much of their start-up success to incubator resources.  "To be successful in business you have to do a thousand little things right, not come up with one brilliant idea," said Larry Kavanagh, president of e-commerce strategy firm DMinSite. "When you're growing, that's tough to do. The incubator has made it easier."  As an example, Kavanagh recalls that Longo furnished a color laser printer and binding equipment and made an incubator staff member available to print and bind DMinSite's sales proposals.  "We could focus on making our proposal as effective as possible and not on how to get this thing to a printer," Kavanagh said. 

 The three company founders agreed that the incubator's affordable, sliding-scale rent was an immediate benefit, as was availability of more space as they grew.  "We moved into the incubator in December 2000 with two people. We now have 25 employees," said Brent Messmer, president of the Matrix Cos., which is primarily a workers' compensation third party administrator. "Pat has always been able to accommodate us."

Sliding scale for rent
The center increases a tenant's rent gradually, until at Year 5 - normally a company's "graduation" year - the amount is at market rate.  Entry-level rents are $5-$10 per square foot, depending on the type of space. "Market rate" is $10-$15.  For engineering planning firm XCG Consultants, the incubator was a great way to learn about the business landscape in a foreign country.  Headquartered in Toronto, XCG picked Cincinnati as the location for its first U.S. office. It recently moved from the center to Blue Ash.  "Labor laws, health and safety procedures, health care differences - they provided a resource you could go to and ask the silly questions," said Phil Gray, who heads the firm's office here. "We were a little naïve, not having had a U.S. operation before." 

 The incubator's value proved itself in less tangible ways, too.  "They did a great job of training, bringing in accounting and financial people, sales and marketing and lending experts," Messmer said.  "They host networking coffee breaks, which help you grow your business. And they understand what resources you need before you know it." 

"We are connectivity," Longo said. "We provide each company a coach. Business manager Mary Myers and I act as sounding boards, or a person they can check with about things that are going on with their company. For example, who is the next person to hire? We help them figure out the logical next step."  "Connectivity" also links the building tenants, encouraging them to share ideas, collaborate with each other, and even become one anothers' clients. Gray said he enjoyed being able to bounce ideas off other people in the incubator, especially at first, when "it was just me and the four walls."

"It's going to be tough, leaving," said Messmer, whose company has leased space in a Roselawn office building and is moving in mid-August. "I like working with the other companies in the incubator."  "It's a really nice facility," Longo said of Matrix Companies' new home. "But a year from now, will they know everybody who's on their floor, much less in their building? The incubator is like an entrepreneurial dorm. The doors are open and people are in the corridors, talking."

One-stop shop
One of the center's strengths is that it's also home to the Hamilton County Development Co., headed by David Main. The development company also contains the Hamilton County Economic Development office and Horizon Certified Development Co., a Small Business Administration loan office that offers SBA 504 financing as well as Ohio Regional 166 loan programs.

The center's $750,000 budget is supported by the incubator businesses' rents as well as a $275,000 annual grant from the Ohio Department of Development.  The combined expertise and services available to incubator tenants make the facility an entrepreneur's one-stop shop. As startups are ready to hop beyond the nest, the staff connects them to area and regional resources such as the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati State and TechSolve.

DMinSite's move to a 9,000-square-foot office suite in Covington's RiverCenter complex is, in Kavanagh's words, "A pretty nice jump-up."  But it's bittersweet.  "We went from two people at a kitchen table in my basement to very fast growth" at the center, he said. "Before we moved here, we were in a big room, crammed together. In our new building, we have beautiful work stations with a view of the river.  “But we wouldn't have gotten here without Pat and Mary Myers and their staff. It was all the things we didn't have to worry about that made the difference."

Copyright 2005, The Enquirer

The year 2005 has been a good year for HCBC’s incubation program.  In fact, 2 major milestones were achieved this year.  In 2005, HCBC graduated its 100^th client and HCBC welcomed its 200^th new entrepreneurial opportunity to the Incubation Program.  Overall, HCBC has successfully graduated nearly 65% of companies who have participated in the program.   

Statistics are from the period July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2005