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Youngstown Business Incubator offers tenants advantages other incubators don’t
Several years ago, Youngstown math teacher Elijah Stambaugh started The Learning Egg with the assistance of the Youngstown Business Incubator. The company makes the Lightning Grader, which is now being used by thousands of teachers and hundreds of schools around the country. “The software allows educators to create assessments that can be deployed on paper or via any web-enabled device,” said Stambaugh. "Lightning Grader automatically grades web assessments and can even grade 100 pages a minute to allow teachers to quickly adapt their instruction to increase student achievement by providing insightful reports into student understanding,” said Stambaugh, founder and chief executive officer of The Learning Egg. (Photo courtesy of the Youngstown Business Incubator).
SHERRY KARABIN
Legal News Reporter
Published: October 23, 2014
In 2009, math teacher Elijah Stambaugh was looking for technology that would allow him to assess how much his students were absorbing in class so that he could adjust his instruction to improve their grasp of the material.
“I couldn’t find what I was looking for,” said Stambaugh, who was teaching seventh and eighth grade at the National Heritage Academies in Youngstown at the time.
So in June 2010, Stambaugh decided to create his own application to fill the void. What he came up with is the Lightning Grader, which is now being used by thousands of teachers and hundreds of schools around the country.
“The software allows educators to create assessments that can be deployed on paper or via any web-enabled device,” said Stambaugh. “Lightning Grader automatically grades web assessments and can even grade 100 pages a minute to allow teachers to quickly adapt their instruction to increase student achievement by providing insightful reports into student understanding,” said Stambaugh, founder and chief executive officer of The Learning Egg, the company he started in 2010 that makes the application.
While the idea may sound simple, he said the concept took time to develop, adding that the assistance of the Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI) was key.
“Upon my wife's encouragement, I pursued the idea on my summer break,” Stambaugh recalled. “I made an appointment with Jim Cossler, chief executive officer at YBI. He helped me to build a team that allowed me to develop the application and create the company. The YBI opens up a large network that helps facilitate conversations that might not otherwise take place.”
When he began, he was a virtual tenant, but now The Learning Egg is a physical company housed in the incubator and Stambaugh has 15 employees, most of them are full time. “The company is impacting students across the nation, which is my desire,” he said.
Located at 241 W. Federal Plaza in Youngstown, the incubator had its beginnings around 1995.
“At first we were more of a general purpose incubator,” said Barb Ewing, chief operating officer at the YBI. “In 2001, the state asked us to align our goals with those of the Ohio Third Frontier.
“We decided to put the focus on companies developing business-to-business software since viable products can be developed and marketed quickly.”
Funded in part by the Ohio Third Frontier Incubation Program and the JumpStart Entrepreneurial Network, today the YBI campus encompasses four buildings and about 32 companies. While the focus remains on IT (information technology) companies, it’s also home to the federally funded research and development center, America Makes, formerly known as the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII).
Made up of 50 companies, 28 universities and labs, including Youngstown State University and 16 other organizations, America Makes seeks to accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing and 3D printing technologies in the U.S. to increase domestic manufacturing competitiveness.
“We have two types of companies,” said Ewing. “Our virtual clients are on the first floor and consist of early stage companies that come in to use the services of the incubator but do not have a physical space here.
“We also have companies housed on the campus. About 10 to 13 are very mature and close to bringing their products to market. We do have a small cluster of agricultural companies, utilizing very advanced technologies, on the campus as well.”
On Sept. 16, the Sweden-based University Business Incubator Index named the Youngstown Business Incubator the world’s best incubator associated with a university.
Chief Executive Officer Jim Cossler said there are several things that led to this distinction.
“Number one, we are a highly specialized incubator program,” said Cossler. “We came to the conclusion early on that we would not take on everyone who knocks on our door.
“We do not adhere to the graduation model that other incubators embrace. If you look at studies you will see that the failure rates are similar for companies that were never part of an incubator and businesses that have been graduated from an incubator and sent out into the world.
“We don’t cast our businesses aside once they begin to see profits. We do not see the reasoning behind losing the revenue they pay for their office space, but even more importantly, we want to keep them around to help the new startup companies.”
Compared to Silicon Valley, which has a competitive cluster of technology companies, he said the Youngstown Business Incubator is a “hyper-cooperative cluster,” with each member expected to contribute to the success of the new ones.
“Our campus contains about 500 employees all working for companies with staggering knowledge. We know every programming language under the sun on this campus. f you want to talk to UI (user interface)/UX (user experience) experts, social media strategists, SEO (search engine optimization) experts, trade show marketing specialists or channel resell strategists, they are all here on campus and willing to help the one or two person startup company which followed them through the door,” said Cossler.
“If you graduate your companies, they scatter across the country, and no longer have any obligation to assist with questions or offer suggestions.”
Although incubators are designed to offer networking opportunities, Cossler said there is nothing like the one the Youngstown Business Incubator has built.
“Our external network stretches from Tokyo to Tel Aviv and includes 7,000 people with connections to Youngstown.
“We sought out the very best and brightest who grew up in Youngstown, but left for higher paying jobs. I call it our 'lost nation'. These people may have left the area, but they still have a strong affinity for the city and are willing to help others in the city,” said Cossler.
“Many of these people went to Harvard or MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and now make up our Diaspora, which is filled with accredited angel investors, venture capitalists, computer and software designers and others.”
As a result, Cossler said when a startup comes to the incubator it has hundreds of people who work for business-to-business software companies available to bounce ideas off of as well as 7,000 others with financing and connections.
The incubator is expanding. The U.S. Economic Development Administration recently awarded the entity $3 million to be used toward renovations for Tech Block Building no. 5.
The $5 million project also includes $1.5 million from the Ohio Capital Appropriations Budget and $500,000 from the city of Youngstown. The additional building will provide startup space for additive manufacturing companies and graduate space for firms that have entered the marketplace.
“Right now, YBI’s graduate space on our campus is fully occupied,” said Cossler. “This is an investment that we have to make if we want to retain and attract the best and brightest to downtown Youngstown.”
The incubator’s success is what attracted Erika Mayiras.
Mayiras majored in technical fashion design and minored in marketing at Kent State University. In March 2014, a few months before she graduated, she came up with a concept to provide on-demand access to eCommerce markets.
“I was part of the entrepreneurship program, the Blackstone LaunchPad, and they put me in front of Jim. I told him about my idea and he picked it up right away.
“I have all my meetings on the YBI campus within the community space, but I do not rent space there,” said Mayiras, founder of TagMe! “Each week I meet with my assigned mentor and we brainstorm and excel on my idea. Jim has also connected me with potential customers like the NFL, which I could not have done on my own.”
She said her connections at the incubator also helped her to find a scientist who understood her concept. The scientist is developing a prototype so that she can obtain a provisional patent.
“We plan to finalize the provisional patent next month and then I will have a year to make any changes for the utility patent,” said Mayiras.
“I don’t think I would be this far along without the incubator behind me. I probably would have become discouraged instead.