Coverage of those starting up businesses and community resources to help them thrive.
Build it and they will come. Proving that the Internet makes all things global, 32-year old entrepreneur Shana Victor has turned her passion for the funky and frivolous into a million dollar local business with a decidely personal touch.
Ypsilanti start-up RealKidz has gotten past the crawling stage and begun to walk on its own two feet.Excerpt:Bit by bit, slowly but steadily, RealKidz is making progress.The Ypsilanti start-up company that sells clothes for plus-size young girls has signed up four independent sales consultants in Michigan. It has also raised $150,000 from angel investors. And its new back-to-school line of clothes finally arrived early this month."We have the product," Merrill Guerra, RealKidz's CEO and founder, said while trying to market her company's clothes during a women's business meeting in Novi earlier this month. "Now we need the funds to push it into the marketplace because nobody knows about us."Read the rest of story here.
Ann Arbor-based Evigia Systems has big plans for its radio frequency ID tags, which should lead to greater local expansion."What we want to do to radio frequency ID tags is what has been done to cell phones," says Karl Ma, vice president of marketing for Evigia Systems. "We want to make them lighter, cheaper and smaller."The company started with one person in 2004 and has grown to 14 people today. Most of that growth has occurred in the last year as it added eight jobs. That expansion is expected to continue in the near future, with Ma foreseeing the firm's staff tripling.Key to that growth is landing a major contract, which Evigia hints will occur soon. The firm is partnering with "a well-known name brand" firm that Ma declined to name. He expects that partnership will be key in attracting the U.S. Department of Defense to the tune of $430-$480 million. Only a few other companies are competing for the contract and Ma sees Evigia as the company to beat. If all goes well, it will mean $100 million more in revenue and the addition of 70-100 people. A big bump in business for this small Ann Arbor start-up.Source: Karl Ma, vice president of marketing for Evigia SystemsWriter: Jon Zemke
Lance Carlson doesn't just want to think outside of the box. He wants to stay completely away from the box. As a matter of fact, he doesn't want anything to do with the box.It is why he started Ruby Skills six months ago. The Ann Arbor SPARK-based business specializes in developing web applications that push the envelope, creating edgier web-based designs that Carlson felt he couldn't do within the confines of someone else's company."I enjoy starting businesses," Carlson says. "I don't enjoy following other people's dreams because often I don't agree with a particular approach. I want to try it my way."To him that means working with freedom-loving entrepreneurs and start-up companies. That's good because its where most web-development firms start at first. So far Ruby Skills is doing just that by creating the likes of eipon.com, which is now in its Beta version.Doing this sort of work has allowed Ruby Skills to grow to three full-time employees and another 3-4 contractors. These people are focused on consolidating gains from the company's first clients and building its reputation.While Ruby Skills wants and intends to add more people, it's No. 1 focus is on building its reputation right now. Carlson spends a lot of his time marketing and networking his start-up in order to land new and future clients."Once it's finished, sky is the limit after that," Carlson says.Source: Lance Carlson, president of Ruby SkillsWriter: Jon Zemke
In the wake of disaster, some people stare into the abyss and see doom, others see opportunity. Mark Creswell saw opportunity when Pfizer closed its Ann Arbor campus early last year."There was a tremendous amount of talent displaced," Creswell says.That led him to create International Discovery Sourcing Consultants. The Chelsea-based company focuses on helping start-up companies get off the ground, especially bio-tech and pharmaceutical companies.IDSC started with Creswell as its sole employee 18 months ago and now employs nine people. The firm hopes to add another 15-18 people within the next two years and build new office space in downtown Chelsea to house them.IDSC's growth is attributed to its increasing number of clients. It started with just a handful and now has nearly 30, including the likes of Velcura Therapeutics. Yet more are expected in the near future.Source: Mark Creswell, president and CEO of International Discovery Sourcing ConsultantsWriter: Jon Zemke
Seven years ago Pixel Velocity started with two people, Eric Sieczka and Dave McCubbery. Today they are the bosses of 25 employees at the Ann Arbor-based firm. The company creates high-speed digital image processing products for the surveillance and medical imaging markets.Pixel Velocity grew incrementally at first, conducting research for its first five years. They were ready to commercialize their product with $5 million in start-up capital and another $1.5 million grant from Michigan's 21st Century Job Fund."Up until that point we had half a dozen people," says Sieczka, president and CEO of Pixel Velocity. "Each year since then we have hired about eight people, including 7-9 people this year. We're growing pretty fast."Sieczka expects his company to continue that growth for the foreseeable future. The firm's revenue is expected to jump another 100 percent while its employee base goes up another 30 percent."We're going to grow pretty dramatically," Sieczka says.He points out that its surveillance market will continue to grow in this Post 9-11 world. So will its medical imaging market, where Pixel Velocity's technology specializes in creating images of the heart."They're both pretty important," Sieczka says.Source: Eric Sieczka, president and CEO of Pixel VelocityWriter: Jon Zemke
Could Pizza House become the next big name in pizza? Will Ann Arbor reassert itself as the 'Home of Pizza' (Ie. Domino's and Cottage Inn)? Some say it's already happening.Excerpt:Each day at Pizza House, hundreds of delivery boxes are folded and ready for food that will almost certainly fill them by the end of the night.A busy day at the restaurant on Church Street in Ann Arbor finds all 11 ovens fired and at least eight employees turning out pizzas as quickly as they can for four hours at a time.Last Saturday, when the University of Michigan football team took on Miami (Ohio) University at home, the restaurant cooked more than 800 pizzas, and served more than 2,000 people in its dining room alone. On football Saturdays, 25 to 30 drivers are kept busy running from home to home. In a city that gave rise to delivery giant Domino's Pizza and regional gourmet chain Cottage Inn, Pizza House has become one of Ann Arbor's independent powerhouses.Read the rest of the story here.
Looking at Michigan's economic future is sort of a glass half full/half empty experience as of late... except in the case of the people behind one Saline company.Gerry Roston, co-founder of Pair of Docs Consulting, definitely sees the state's glass, especially in the Ann Arbor, as half full and filling quickly."There is a lot of talk of doom and gloom in the state," says Roston. "For those of us involved with the tech start-ups … there is a lot going on. It's hard to imagine that something good isn’t going to happen soon. Something has to pop."Pair of Docs is was founded in 1999 by Roston and his wife, Lorraine Thompson, with a focus on improving business and organizational management for tech start-ups. The two PhDs (Pair of Docs, get it?) are heavily involved with Michigan's efforts to turn its brawn-based economy into a brain-based one. They have worked with the likes of Ann Arbor SPARK and the state's 21st Century Jobs Fund. Roston also serves on the advisory board for Michigan's 21st Century Emerging Technologies Fund. The Salime firm started out with the couple, which often work on separate projects, and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future. Roston expects to expand as his firm's consulting reputation grows. As he sees it, there should be plenty of that kind of work in Michigan's future.Source: Gerry Roston, co-founder of Pair of Docs ConsultingWriter: Jon Zemke
Capturing the energy created by Michigan's numerous waterways often involves damns and turbines. But Vortex Hydro Energy wants to change that common wisdom in the alternative energy game.The University of Michigan spin-off is in the midst of perfecting a new technology that can create energy without dams, turbines and the environmental problems they cause. Its Vortex Induced Vibrations Aquatic Clean Energy technology promises to take its energy from the action of water currents."It greatly enhances our ability to harness energy from even very slow currents," says Michael Bernitsas, chief technology officer for Vortex Hydro Energy. The Ann Arbor-based company's three co-founders and other assorted contractors has developed and proven the technology works at U-M's Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department. It is in the midst of raising money to create a prototype. "We are very close to having all of the money we need to build the prototype," Bernitsas says.After that, further testing is still needed and the project will be opened up to investors again. Bernitsas, also a professor at U-M, thinks the technology is about 5-6 years away from being commercialized.Source: Michael Bernitsas, chief technology officer for Vortex Hydro EnergyWriter: Jon Zemke
Talk to the people behind 3.7 Designs and they'll tell you they don't just build websites. They create the website, strategize how to attract visitors to the website and troubleshoot any problems that arise on the website.The downtown Ann Arbor-based firm recently created sites for the city of Howell's street improvement program as well as ArborVitae, which deals with pregnancy problems. 3.7 Designs focused not only on their creation but also their accessibility to potential users."We want to work with people to have successful websites," says Ross Johnson, CEO of 3.7 Designs.Johnson started 3.7 Designs in 2004 as a part-time freelancer and made it his full-time job in 2005. Today the firm employs three people and is looking to hire another web developer or two within the year."It's really more about finding the right person, not just any person," Johnson says.Johnson hopes to do that by attracting bigger clients. The firm got its start creating start-up webpages and the like. It has now moved onto smaller organizations, but would like to take on even bigger ones in the near future."It's been really busy," Johnson says.Source: Ross Johnson, CEO of 3.7 DesignsWriter: Jon Zemke
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