Is Chicago a good home for innovation and entrepreneurship? A new survey from Charles Schwab indicates locals are enthusiastic about starting businesses and innovating here, but it also highlights concerns about the effect of crime and government inefficiencies.
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Growth Stories: Therese Fauerbach, The Northridge Group
Some companies experience growth in an instant, an inflection point that takes things from good to great. Therese Fauerbach, CEO and co-founding partner of consulting services organization The Northridge Group, said more than 15 years of running her own business have produced several such moments. And she credits her network with helping her manage them.
In 1999, Northridge could hardly handle the flow of business coming from Internet companies, Fauerbach said. A former executive at communications giant MCI, Fauerbach said her expertise in telecommunications drew clients from across the country. But when the dot-com bubble burst, four of her clients went bankrupt and she nearly didn’t get paid.
Fauerbach said she realized simply having clients was not as valuable as having the right ones.
“If your customers go bankrupt, you feel it,” Fauerbach said. “You need to take a real good look at who you’re bringing in and who you’re investing your dollars in.”
Impact Engine accelerator announces new class of social-good startups
Impact Engine, a Chicago accelerator for for-profit businesses that address social and environmental challenges, on Thursday announced its “Impact 3” cohort, which will feature six Chicago-based companies and one from San Francisco.
Beginning Sept. 29, the companies will spend 16 weeks building their businesses at the 1871 coworking center, where Impact Engine is based. They will receive $25,000, mentors and free workspace to do so, Impact Engine said.
Herman Miller uses Chicago-based platform in call for unique designs
Chicago-based Unbranded Designs on Thursday is launching a partnership in which legendary furniture company Herman Miller Inc. will consider unique office concepts from independent designers.
Unbranded Designs is a platform on which designers share furniture-related concepts and that connects designers with manufacturers for possible production. Herman Miller is launching a design challenge on the platform, calling for innovative solutions to address mobility within office spaces where employees don’t have dedicated desks or access to private space. Mobility in this case refers not to getting to and from the office but to carting objects such as laptops and files across shared spaces.
Newark element14 aims for better collaboration in new office space
Chicago-based Newark element14 is on the move. After 35 years in a squat Ravenswood building that one employee likened to an elementary school, the company Monday moved its headquarters and some 400 employees to a sleek 65,000-square-foot-space designed to inspire employee collaboration and interaction.
The glass building at 300 S. Riverside Plaza will be the new long-term home for the distributor of engineering solutions and electronic components, such as the popular single-board computer Raspberry Pi.
Motorola unveils Moto 360 smartwatch, updates Moto X, Moto G
Motorola Mobility unveiled new and updated smart devices including a widely anticipated watch at its new Merchandise Mart headquarters Thursday, aiming to reclaim market share in an industry it created.
On display were second-generation Moto X and Moto G smartphones, the much-anticipated Moto 360 smartwatch and the in-ear Moto Hint. All are available in a range of colors and materials, and the Moto 360 and Moto G go on sale at 11 a.m. Friday. The event came five days before Tuesday’s expected product announcement by rival Apple Inc.
Why Cultivian Ventures, Sandbox Industries invest in food production
Agriculture isn’t sexy to a lot of people, but it’s attracting some investors with an eye for cashing in on new technologies and innovations in the food-production space.
The world will be home to 9.6 billion by 2050, requiring a 70 percent increase in food production, the United Nations reported in late 2013.
Add climate change and an expected shortage of arable land and clean water, and innovation becomes a nearly essential part of the equation. So says Ron Meeusen, managing partner at Cultivian Ventures, a food and agriculture-focused venture capital firm with offices in Chicago and Indianapolis founded in 2006.
1871 rebrands FEMtech; applications open Tuesday for WiSTEM
A new women-focused incubator at 1871 will begin taking applications Tuesday in advance of a January 2015 opening — and to the relief of some entrepreneurs, it won’t be called FEMtech.
Instead, the initiative will be named WiSTEM 1871, a nod to women in science, technology, engineering and math, the company announced Friday.
The new branding was created pro bono by Chicago-based advertising agency Leo Burnett. And, yes, it’s meant to sound a bit like “wisdom.”
Open soon for business: An innovation-focused space in Fulton Market
evamped industrial complex in the Fulton Market district will give large corporations another urban space to connect with up-and-coming Chicago companies.
Morgan Manufacturing, an 88,000-square-foot event, meeting and work facility slated to open by late September, will provide space for organizations such as the Chicago Innovation Awards to bring potential partners together, the company announced Monday.
A 32,000-square-foot space that Morgan Manufacturing describes as an Innovation Lab is set to become the home of The Innovators Connection, a Chicago Innovation Awards program aimed at connecting large and small companies, said Chicago Innovation Awards executive director Luke Tanen.
Morgan Manufacturing falls in the 217-acre Fulton Market Innovation District approved by the Chicago Plan Commission in July. Most of the $42 million dedicated to the plan will fund infrastructure improvements. The plan includes land use, design and density guidelines.
The historical meatpacking neighborhood is increasingly attracting innovative companies such as Uber and Google, which plans to open offices there in early 2016. Businesses moving to the Fulton Market Innovation District may be eligible for tax increment financing, though Shreyas Shah, the Innovation Lab’s Chief Brand Officer, said the $19 million renovation of Morgan Manufacturing, a building dating to before the Great Chicago Fire, was fully funded by MAB Capital and has not received any incentives from the city at this time.
Why one Chicago company gives employees the same title and salary
Ask any startup employee about the perks of their job and, aside from flexible work options and a Ping Pong table, they might mention the lack of red tape. Some small companies are embracing flat structures to step farther away from the typically corporate chain of command that they see as a strain on creativity and productivity.
Flat structures remove the middle manager. That takes away close supervision and gives employees more freedom in creativity and decision-making.
Take Datascope Analytics, a five-year-old, nine-person data-science shop with an office in the Loop. Five employees share a title — data scientist — while the company’s four partners, including co-founders Dean Malmgren and Mike Stringer, are data scientists who carry extra labels. All nine have the same monthly salary.
“It’s hard to have a culture that promotes creativity and thinking of things differently,” Malmgren said. “It’s really important to get lots of input from equally valid sources.”
Amina Elahi 