Next Cutting Edge? YBI Startups Create Markets.
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- With startups and portfolio companies occupying all five floors of the Youngstown Business Incubator, the TechBelt hub is redefining what it means to do business in downtown Youngstown.
Companies such as Applied Systems and Technology Transfer (AST2) and Accupoint Software are bridging the gap between the city’s manufacturing past and its information technology present. Startups such as Fyrware are working to roll out their flagship products while established companies such as The Learning Egg and Equipment Appraisal Services are on the threshold of expanding their services.
Sitting in an office just big enough for his desk and a few chairs, the president and owner of Equipment Appraisal Services, Kipp Krukowski, is putting the final touches on his company’s forthcoming venture, EquipmentAuction.com. The website is “like a hybrid of Craigslist and eBay” for posting and selling equipment, he explains.
“It allows individuals as well as companies and dealers to sell their equipment and match up with buyers and sellers to where there are no fees involved,” Krukowski says.
Krukowski and his seven employees, who work in an office down the hall, have been offering equipment appraisal serv-ices since 2003 for companies in the construction, manufacturing and medical industries, he says. The auction website will help the company to streamline its efforts in researching equipment to give clients the best price as it provides the auction service at no charge.
“The whole idea is to get the most current and broad database of equipment transactions,” Krukowski says. “So, with buyers and sellers transacting or negotiating deals on our website, we’re able to get the most current information, which helps us out when we’re doing our research.”
The site will also help market the company’s core business to lenders and business professionals and “show them that we’ve got the data to really support the values that we come up with,” he says. With 85% of its business outside of Ohio, the networking and online resources of the YBI “have played no small part” in the growth of his company, he says.
YBI’s newest tenant, Fyrware, credits incubator CEO Jim Cossler with helping to get it moving.
The company is ready to launch its flagship software, Empowr – employee management software that allows employers to track employee activity within the company’s computer network in real time.
Chad Brown, Fyrware chief of business operations, says Empowr addresses an issue that “impacts every business within corporate America today,” eliminating employee downtime and “trimming the fat” of wasted time.
“Our software tracks what the employees are doing within the program,” Brown says. “Every time we discuss it with people, they talk about the different business verticals that it can help with.”
Brown says Cossler and YBI not only helped set up Fyrware with office space, but also provided vital coaching and networking services.
“The YBI is phenomenal,” Brown says. “It has given us more resources than any other entity.”
Jeffrey Cianciola agrees. With 25 years of manufacturing and programming experience, the CEO of Accupoint Software worked evenings and weekends with his staff to produce its InterLink web application, which it launched in 2007. YBI helped provide insight in how to move the product in to the IT market, Cianciola says.
“They had some consultants that helped us to take a look at things and really kind of vet out the foundations,” Cianciola says.
InterLink helps manufacturing organizations manage their ISO quality, environmental and safety programs, and ensure they’re in compliance. While savings varies by each company that uses the software, one client cut its annual expenses 28%, Cianciola says.
“Organizations will use Excel spreadsheets, file folders, and it’s very complex and very costly. It’s also taking a lot of employee time to maintain all of this,” Cianciola says. “With our application, they can access the information anywhere. They can see all the information, all of their records, all of the data contained right there.”
Before moving upstairs into the incubator level, Accupoint spent a year in the YBI’s Inspire! Lab. The 1,800-square-foot suite on YBI’s first floor provides startup companies with professional office space, conference rooms, equipment and access to other resources within YBI.
In 2000, the YBI switched its focus from a general-purpose incubator to high technology. In that time, Julie Michael Smith served as its first chief development officer after serving as a board member.
The focus on information technology helped change the perception of the Mahoning Valley and how the Valley views itself. No longer is it “woe is me,” she says. It’s one of potential.
“We have to consider how it’s changed the psyche of entrepreneurs who may have never stepped over the threshold of the Youngstown Business Incubator,” Smith says. “Look at the facility, look at what’s happened here. More people have taken their own ideas and started their own ventures.”
Smith, now executive vice president of AST2, has watched the YBI evolve from a “scrappy startup company” to an IT hub that’s gaining national prominence, most recently with the addition of the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII).
While the institute provides a national hub for additive manufacturing, Smith has high expectations for its role in the region, especially with education.
“Having [NAMII] based here is an affirmation that we need to be moving in that direction in the Mahoning Valley,” Smith says.
AST2 has developed a program called InventorCloud used in local high schools as well as Youngstown State University and Eastern Gateway Community College that teaches the skills needed in advanced manufacturing and provides an opportunity for students to put those skills to work, particularly with rapid prototyping and 3-D printing.
During the 18-week course, students are given real-world problems and instructed to work as a team in developing a solution. Students then create their prototype from their classroom by interacting remotely with rapid prototyping equipment in AST2’s StormLab.
“They’re able to see the 3-D printing process,” Smith says. “They’re able to control these pieces of equipment and recognize that this is going to be part of their jobs of the future.”
InventorCloud is wrapping up its first full semester of implementation with more than 600 students enrolled in the program from 10 Ohio schools, Smith says. This year, AST2’s 12 employees will develop additional courses, such as environmental sustainability and creative entrepreneurship.
The Learning Egg works with schools administratively. The company, founded by a former middle school math teacher, Elijah Stambaugh, launched The Lightning Grader last year. The grader “helps teachers and administrators save time, be more efficient and increase student achievement,” says Learning Egg vice president of quality assurance Bob Adduci.
“It enables teachers to easily create assessments, print those assessments, administer them to their students and scan them in,” Adduci says. “The Lightning Grader then grades them at 100 pages per minute.”
Once the tests are graded, The Lightning Grader instantly generates 14 real-time analytic reports that help teachers “drill down to the student’s work” to better understand each student’s strengths and weaknesses, Adduci says.
The reports include data on the questions missed the most each test as well as snapshots of the extended response questions stored online so teachers can view them on their home computers.
“In fact, there are some teachers who are scanning them in before the students leave the classes and covering the most-missed questions right there in that class while the test is still fresh in their mind,” he says.
Some 200 teachers in 35 states are using the software, which is also being used as a pilot in 15 school districts here and in other states, Adduci says. He credits the YBI for helping to move the product to market as well as courting talented young people.
“There are some bright kids that we’re working with at Youngstown State University and interns, and the ideas that they’re bringing through the doors of the YBI are pretty amazing,” he says. “The future’s very bright for the Youngstown area and the TechBelt.”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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