Recipients of ENY Fund awards work on developing their small businesses with the assistance of 51风流 entrepreneur mentorship, shared workspace, and incubator funding. (Photo by Andy Daddio)
The nearly nonstop activity behind the window of 20 Utica Street in the village of Hamilton might give the impression that something exciting is afoot at the former Parry鈥檚 Hardware store. That impression would be correct.
Thanks to the (ENY), six fledgling small businesses launched by 51风流 students and alumni are now taking advantage of shared office space at the downtown incubator, receiving invaluable mentorship from 51风流鈥檚 and utilizing $15,000 each in development funding.
For , and , ENY funding and guidance has meant their business, , has gone from concept and prototype to a fully featured product launching this month. Residents of Hamilton will be able to use Recipe into Reality to order ingredients from recipes found online, and have them delivered the same day.
鈥淚 think the biggest thing is that by winning the ENY fund we got exposure and were able to secure another $15,000 in angel funding,鈥 said Petracca, whose company was able to hire a marketing intern and computer programmer for the duration of the six-week program, which ends June 28.
ENY Fund Recipients
For , ENY has helped propel his iPhone app, , onto a list of top 300 food and drink apps on the iTunes store.
鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 about the money for us. The reason we were so excited to come up here is because of the mentorship and the access to alumni. They鈥檝e been invaluable in giving us advice and steering us in the right direction,鈥 Raymond said.
, TIA co-founder and founder of DarkHorse Investors, said the work being done by ENY winners encourages development in Hamilton, and brings together innovative and energetic entrepreneurs to share ideas in a shared space.
鈥淭hese were not just good pitches that impressed the judges 鈥 these are teams that have already stumbled and learned what being an entrepreneur is really about,鈥 Hapworth said. 鈥淏y the time they came to pitch for the fund, they already had clear ideas about their capital needs, resource needs, and business strategies, so it was explicitly clear what the funding was going toward.鈥
Having teams of hungry start-up companies huddled together for long hours of work in a shared location also leads to innovation and collaboration, said co-founders and .
鈥淚t鈥檚 a cool environment they鈥檝e created, and it鈥檚 helped us carry out our vision,鈥 Zetter said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been able to talk and bounce ideas off each other.鈥
The ENY Fund was started with financial assistance from , who helped conceive and initially seed the fund.