EDA Grant Expands New Venture Accelerator’s Impact Beyond Auburn University
Availability of new business formation and development services for all Auburn area entrepreneurs drives unprecedented success
When Auburn’s New Venture Accelerator (NVA) joined forces with the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA), the City of Auburn and the Auburn Research and Technology Foundation (The Park) three years ago to expand access to the NVA’s extraordinary portfolio of start-up and new business development services, we knew we were onto something.
The reception we received from the extended Auburn Family, however, quickly exceeded our original expectations. The initiative, funded by an EDA grant, extends the NVA’s insight, counsel and business development support to local companies not directly affiliated with Auburn University.
According to Ayshia Green-Calloway, Program Manager at the New Venture Accelerator, “the intention of the grant was to extend the existing resources and services that we offer our students and faculty here at Auburn University to the surrounding community. We wanted to see if the model that has been successful for us in-house would work in assisting our greater local area community, including members of University staff.”
The results are in, and the answer is a resounding “Yes!”
The NVA sat down with Green-Calloway for an update on how this critical initiative is benefiting Auburn area businesses as the three-year grant comes to a close.
NVA: Let’s start with your role at the NVA and how this grant came about.
Green-Calloway: As the program manager for the grant, I manage all aspects of it – from the administrative piece to all the activities that are created under it. I track the budget, complete all of our required reporting to the federal agency, and I also oversee all activities and ensure that what we’re doing with the funding aligns with what we outlined in our original project proposal.
NVA: What was the size of the EDA grant and how was it structured?
Green-Calloway: The total grant was S1.3 million, with about half of that being a cost share – there was a one-to-one matching provision that required Auburn to match the funds that the EDA has agreed to contribute to our project. The City of Auburn has contributed some extremely valuable in-kind services for marketing and counseling for manufacturing startups, and The Park has donated critical assets and services as well, such as space and access to equipment. It’s been a team effort all around.
A portion of the money awarded went to the NVA itself to administer direct services to businesses – the expertise we are known for providing to student- and faculty-based start-ups. We also allotted money to develop a video series in partnership with the Auburn University Media Production Group and created other resources available to local area business owners on issues pertinent to startups such as pitching a business idea and start-up customer value. This was a big part of the grant.
Other local area organizations have contributed their expertise and services in various ways since the grant was awarded, and these new partners have been helpful along this journey to serve the greater Auburn community.
NVA: One might conclude, listening to you, that this is a telling example of multiple entities, forces, initiatives, efforts – the Auburn Family – coming together to support new business development and success in the greater Auburn-Opelika community.
Can you tell us about some of the local area companies that have benefitted from this EDA grant initiative?
Green-Calloway: Absolutely, but first, let me describe the kind of companies we were seeking to impact through this “experiment” – because it really was an experiment. We had an inkling the need was there, but part of our focus was to find out if what we offered start-ups led by current students and faculty at Auburn would be valuable to others in the greater Auburn area.
The primary target audience was local area technology-based companies that may have been founded by students or faculty who have since graduated from Auburn, are no longer on the faculty here, or never were formally connected to Auburn University.
One example would be Paths, which has developed an innovative patient-centric software platform that helps medical practitioners inform, educate and guide patients and family caregivers as they struggle to navigate our increasingly complex healthcare delivery system.
Paths held an after-hours reception, presentation and networking event at the NVA’s state-of-the-art entrepreneurial facilities that was a huge success for Paths in reaching local doctors, clinicians, and potential partners critical to the company’s continued growth.
There’s no better way to preview a new product such as this than to roll it out through an in-person demonstration of all the features and benefits of that product in front of a gathering of strategic partners, early adopters, and potential customers.
Class Cash is another example. Auburn alumni founders created Class Cash to provide an opportunity for selected students to promote brands by using their laptops as miniature billboards. Local area businesses pay Class Cash to use students as brand ambassadors and earn money while learning in class and studying on campus.
The Class Cash mobile app pays students in real-time when their laptops are open in specific geofence zones on campus including educational environments like classrooms, students centers and libraries.
A third NVA company that we continue to support now that the founders have graduated is Room2Room Movers. Founder Brooks Fuller and his team head up an established, rapidly growing company offering a comprehensive portfolio of end-to-end moving, room set-up and community welcoming services that help Auburn students settle into their new college homes comfortably, stress-free and ready to learn.
The company is now embarking on a strategic expansion to a handful of SEC schools in surrounding states to bring their unique, value-added services to additional flagship college towns, and the NVA is helping with strategic market launch expertise and support.
A second group of target local area companies that have benefitted from the expanded support services the EDA grant has provided are what people refer to as “lifestyle businesses” – companies that serve local area customers primarily. These are relatively small companies that depend heavily on the founder’s skills, personality, energy, and contacts.
These are just a sampling of the type of local area companies that have benefitted from the NVA’s expanded services offering – there are many more, including some for whom English is not their first language. For those business owners, we’ve even begun offering our workshops in Spanish and have expanded our partnership with the Small Business Development Center to help these companies obtain business counseling. That, too, has been a great success.
NVA: Now that the grant is coming to an end, what is the NVA doing to keep this ball rolling?
Green-Calloway: We are going to continue with many of our local community outreach services but using a slightly different model. But one thing that our director, Lou Bifano, has made clear is that as a land grant institution, we have a commitment to public service. He doesn’t want us to stop serving the public good simply because the grant is ending. We have seen that both our community partners and business owners across the Auburn entrepreneurship ecosystem are finding tremendous value in this expansion of services.
As for us, we have discovered that this grant has opened so many doors with alumni and others offering equitable resources to our low-income areas and our Hispanic community – we simply have to keep going. I had begun meeting regularly with a group of people who offer business support and networking resources in the community, and we’re continuing to meet informally with the intention of establishing this value-added group as an official entity soon.
To find out more about the New Venture Accelerator’s new business start-up and development services – or how you can contribute your own talents, services and financial support to this extraordinarily important initiative – please contact Ayshia Green-Calloway directly at greenay@auburn.edu.
You’ll be happy you did – guaranteed.