Monday, January 12, 2015YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- In a small plain room inside the Youngstown Business Incubator, Jim Cossler is meeting with two women who have an idea for an app. “That makes you look like a $50 million or a $100 million company,” he says as he looks at their new logo.
As they work their way through a checklist of items, the topic of hiring a developer comes up. “Let’s talk about that for a second and one of the land mines that potentially occurs,” Cossler says. That statement increases their attention as he shifts gears and begins, “I’ll tell you an interesting story.”
The CEO – also known as the chief evangelical officer – of the YBI teaches by telling stories because he himself is a big fan. “I love to read,” he says, “and so does my wife.”
Their passion is evident the moment a visitor enters their home in Aurora. Just to the right of the front door are shelves with hundreds of books, a globe and a couch where you sit and look out on the front yard.
It’s one of the ways Cossler likes to unwind after a long day of coaching technology companies. The first step is turning the technology off.
“We got rid of cable five years ago and had no withdrawal whatsoever,” he says. “I don’t miss it.” The visitor would search in vain for a television in the house. Same for an electronic reader. “I like the feel of a book in my hand,” Cossler says.
In addition to reading, Cossler and Christine, his wife of 11 years, enjoy gardening, working outside and walking their dogs. “We walk the dogs every night. It’s good for us and good for them,” he says.
The larger dog is Dr. Watson, named after Sherlock Holmes’ confidant and chronicler. Cossler rescued the smaller dog, Gracie, from a puppy mill. She’s blind and likes to sit quietly by his side.
Once the dogs have been walked, “we turn on our music and usually split a bottle of wine,” says Cossler, preferring a red variety that’s very dry.
However, their “extreme passion” can be seen on the walls of most of the other rooms – photographs Christine has taken during their many trips. “We love to travel. We live to travel,” Cossler says. “Typically what we’ll do is I’ll study the history of where we’re going and Christine will study the culture of where we’re going.”
The couple just got back from a trip to France with a stop in Liechtenstein because it “added another country.” Cossler estimates they’ve been in 32.
This month they’ll travel to Portugal and Scotland. So far, Cossler says, his favorite country is Iceland. “You never saw anything that topographically or geologically looked like that,” he says adding, “It was the cleanest country I’ve ever seen.”
A self-professed neat freak, Cossler constantly picks up litter as he walks through downtown Youngstown. “Litter drives me off the charts,” he says.
That doesn’t surprise Pat Rose. Sweating the details is the greatest lesson she learned from Cossler, she says. Now retired as president of the BBB, Rose succeeded Cossler in 1995.
“He was a wonderful person who really believed in mentoring people to help bring them up to what he wanted them to be,” Rose says. “When we would send out a member request, which is what he was known for, he made sure it was exactly perfect.”
Addresses had to be written neatly and stamps placed correctly. If they weren’t the letter wasn’t mailed until it was fixed.
Cossler’s attention to detail is part of the principle he believes is called “Point of Contact Marketing.”
Voiced by Jan Carlzon, former CEO of SAS Group, “Point” posits that the sum of every interface you have with a customer is that person’s opinion of you. Whether a letter or email, the way your business answers the phone, “every single detail is important,” Cossler says.
Regardless, when asked what he considers his most valuable trait, Cossler replies, “That’s easy. I’m a lifetime learner.”
The man, who turns 60 this month, grew up on the west side of Youngstown, “50 feet from Mill Creek Park.”
After graduating from Chaney High School, he spent one year at Miami University before returning to Youngstown and two “disappointed” parents. “They said, ‘If you’re not going back to Miami, you’re going to have to pay for your own education,’ ” he remembers. “They were really upset I didn’t finish there.”
Cossler enrolled at Youngstown State University, taking classes that interested him, but didn’t finish there either. To the surprise of many, he never earned a college diploma.
He spent most of his time studying English literature, philosophy and geology. “I was there for an education. I wasn’t there for vocational training,” he declares.
He left YSU and got a job as a member of Teamsters Local 377 before becoming the youth director at the Central YMCA in Youngstown.
Cossler had been a regular at the Y since his childhood. He swam on the swim team and rode the bus home afterward. “You’d get back on the bus when it was dark. It would drop you off a block or two from your house and your parents would think nothing of it,” he remembers.
It wasn’t long before Cossler became the Central Y’s membership and financial development director, putting him in charge of the Y’s membership campaigns. “Every single one of my campaigns made the goal,” he says proudly.
Because the BBB is also an organization with members, he was offered the presidency of the Youngstown chapter when the position opened.
From there he moved to the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber as senior vice president of corporate services. He spent his days providing technical answers to members’ questions.
“How do I comply with OSHA’s blood-borne pathogen standards?” he offers as an example of the queries he received. No matter the question, Cossler worked diligently to find the answer.
Occasionally he had contact with a startup company. “Chambers typically don’t touch startups, but when I did, I loved it,” he says.
So when he was offered the presidency of the Youngstown Business Incubator, he “jumped at it without asking questions,” he says. “Without doing any due diligence whatsoever.” Something he readily admits he would advise others not to do.
“I may not know the right answer in every particular case but I absolutely know the wrong answer,” Cossler says of his role as coach to startups.
While the companies that seek help from the YBI are all different, they will all experience similar problems, Cossler says. “I can tell you exactly what you shouldn’t do.”
Which makes him a valuable resource for any company, regardless of the level of technology it employs or is working to develop.
“Everyone thinks his job is based on his understanding of technology. It’s not,” says Barb Ewing, YBI chief operating officer. “His job is about knowing how to take an idea from concept to fruition.”
That sometimes puts him at odds with young entrepreneurs who think he doesn’t understand what or how they’re striving for.
“I think it’s fair if they wonder whether I even know what I’m talking about,” Cossler admits. “I’m still using a Blackberry.”
But if they have a good idea and can take his straight talk, they soon learn to listen.
“When I first met Jim, it was like going into the ‘Shark Tank,’ ” says Eunice Duff of the time she and her partner pitched their idea.
“One of my friends said, ‘If it’s not a good idea, he’ll shoot you down. Don’t expect more than one meeting,’ ” adds Danielle Neil.
Duff and Neil’s company, Ep-tech LLC, is a YBI portfolio company looking to launch a new app in the first quarter of this year.
Without Cossler’s leadership and direction, Duff says, they wouldn’t be where they are today.
“He calls me ‘Young Jedi.’ Sometimes you want to run before you can crawl,” she says.
With Cossler at the helm, the growth of the YBI has gone from crawl to walk to Usain Bolt (the world’s fastest sprinter). The Semple, America Makes and Taft Technology buildings are 100% occupied and the main building, 241 W. Federal St., is at 70% occupancy.
YBI is preparing to occupy a fifth building and looking for a sixth. “I think the [fifth] building will be filled within the first 18 to 24 months,” Cossler says, wanting to be prepared should a “killer startup” come along. Accommodating the expansion of his tenants is also a concern.
As for his future, Cossler says “of course” he’s planning to retire. But what the incubator will look like and how soon remain unclear.
“There’s something about Youngstown. I don’t know what it is,” he muses. “I don’t think its story’s really been told yet. I’m not sure my role in telling that story is completely done yet.”
Adds Ewing, “Jim’s love for this community is what drives him. He saw the city’s potential and started convincing others that great things can happen here.”
Although he’ll leave the YBI one day, he has no plans to retire. Cossler says he can see himself at a university-based entrepreneurship program, working with students and continuing to pass on his lifetime of knowledge: “I am on a quest to learn something every single day.”
Pictured: Jim Cossler, the CEO of the Youngstown Business Incubator, relaxes with a book and his dog, Gracie in his home.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The January edition of The Business Journal profiles four people voted by our editorial board as "2014's Most Intriguing People." We begin publishing these stories online today. A video version will appear later today on Monday's edition of the DailyBUZZ webcast.
Copyright 2015 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our free daily email headlines and to our twice-monthly print edition.