Awards

Hartford Prints! was a Silver award recipient at the 2015 reSET Impact Awards. The annual event recognizes winners of the Impact Challenge and honors innovative, impactful and viable early-stage ventures and startups from all industries.

Impact Award winners shared details about their companies and their experiences with Innovation Destination: Hartford. Read the interview and watch a video with Hartford Prints! Callie Gale Heilmann, Middle Sister, and Rory Gale, Younger Sister.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGz4vk6dARk&feature=youtu.be

IDH: When and why did you start your company?/How did you develop the business concept?

HEILMANN: We started Hartford Prints! in 2012 as a letterpress and design studio. The impetus behind the business was a desire to merge our talents as sisters. Addy brought the handmade process of letterpress printing, Rory offered homegrown graphic design services and I provided my creative eye and administrative direction.

In the early days of the business, we were strictly focused on custom print and design services. In 2013, however, we received the iConnect grant from the City of Hartford, which allowed us to open a store in downtown Hartford and the business model evolved to include retail. Slowly over the last three years, Hartford Prints! has evolved to be a lifestyle brand for urban dwellers in Connecticut.

We just launched our new e-commerce site at www.hartfordprints.com, as well as our new “Small State Big Heart” commercial, highlighting the handmade and homegrown nature our community and the concept behind the Hartford Prints! brand.

IDH: Describe your company – what do you do/product/services (2-3 sentences).

HEILMANN: Hartford Prints! is an urban good brand that specializes in handmade and homegrown products. We sell urban apparel, letterpress stationery and unique gifts from makers around the state in our store and online.

We also wholesale our letterpress cards nationally and are carried in more than 50 stores worldwide. Additionally, we offer high-end specialty print services for graphic designers, large companies and marketing firms all over the northeast.

IDH: Why did you get involved in the reSET Impact Challenge?

HEILMANN: The reSET Impact Challenge offered Hartford Prints! the opportunity to showcase the creative impact that our business has on our city and our state. Geared toward young urban dwellers in Connecticut, our products offer people a way to express pride about where they are from, so we applied for the Impact Challenge as a way to give more exposure to the good work we are doing. We also wanted to win the reSET Impact Challenge as a way of validating our business model for potential investors across the state.

IDH: Where do you see your company in the next three to five years?

HEILMANN: Over the next three to five years, Hartford Prints! will become the lifestyle brand for people who live in Connecticut! Our online sales will grow each year, allowing us the opportunity to open another store location in New Haven or Bridgeport and offer our products via vending kiosks at Metro North train stations throughout the state. After a studio/store merger, our flagship Hartford store will remain an active community space, offering workshops, unique products and partnerships, and one-of-a-kind events.

IDH: Any words of wisdom for aspiring entrepreneurs or startup business owners?

HEILMANN: Understand and embrace the chaos but work hard every day to move things forward in an organized and systematic way. As Nathan Bond of Rifle Paper Co. once told us, as an entrepreneur “You are never and always ready!”

Beautiful Day received a Bronze Award at the 2015 reSET Impact Awards, an annual event that honors winners of the Impact Challenge and recognizes impactful, innovative and viable early-stage ventures and startups from all industries.

Innovation Destination: Hartford asked Impact Award winners about their companies and their experiences. Read our interview with Anne Dombrofski, Director of Strategic Partnerships, and watch a video to learn more about Beautiful Day and The Providence Granola Project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W0LDlgdRuE&feature=youtu.be

IDH: How did the company develop its business concept?

DOMBROFSKI: While working at a refugee resettlement agency in Providence, RI, Founder Keith Cooper was becoming increasingly aware of the challenges for newly arrived refugees seeking work; both the critical need to secure a job and the consequences—not just financial, but also social and emotional, of not being able to do so. Also, there was not an easily accessible way for native-born Americans to engage in addressing these challenges and, in the process, to advance our collective welcome of refugee newcomers to our communities.

Keith and a friend started the Providence Granola Project (PGP) and set out to employ refugees by providing paid job training—and tell the broader community about refugee resettlement. In 2012, we formed Beautiful Day, the nonprofit that now owns and operates the PGP.

The PGP reinvests 100% of its sales revenue in the project. We offer a growing segment of ethically minded consumers the opportunity to purchase premium products that nourish their own health while providing a direct, local and tangible way to respond to the global refugee crisis.

IDH: Tell us about the company.

DOMBROFSKI: Beautiful Day builds on-ramps to employment for refugees by aligning customer demand for locally sourced artisanal food products with refugees’ need for culturally sensitive on-the-job training.

The PGP produces delicious, mostly organic, gourmet granola handmade by refugees. By learning to make and sell our products, refugees gain critical skills that prepare them for their first U.S. jobs.

IDH: How did you become involved in the reSET Impact Challenge?

DOMBROFSKI: Two years ago, I was working with a local refugee community-based organization and heard about the co-working space at reSET, so went with a friend to check it out. I’ve kept in touch with the reSET team since then and reconnected at the SEEED Summit in April.

When we saw that this year’s Impact Challenge was open to social enterprise ventures from across New England, the PGP decided to apply. As part of the process, we’ve made wonderful new connections and expanded our network of fellow social entrepreneurs.

IDH: Where do you see your company in the next three to five years?

DOMBROFSKI: By 2020, we’d like Providence Granola to be a household name in New England and we’d like to have replicated our granola production and refugee job training model in at least two other cities, with more than 100 refugees trained and entering the job market annually as a result of PGP and these ventures. More than 2,500 customers will be impacted—they will increase awareness of and connection to refugees through their purchases, and tons of high-quality, artisanal, refugee-made granola products will be consumed.

IDH: Any advice for entrepreneurs or startup business owners?

DOMBROFSKI: Pay attention when you feel like you’re about to make a decision out of fear. There’s almost always some important wisdom hiding in anything that makes you anxious or uncomfortable. It takes strength to get close enough to learn from these things. And the wisdom refugees bring is just to not give up.

ParrotMD received a Silver award at the 2015 reSET Impact Awards, an annual event that celebrates winners of the Impact Challenge and honors impactful, innovative and viable early-stage ventures and startups from all industries.

Impact Award winners shared information about their companies and their experiences with Innovation Destination: Hartford. Read the interview and watch a video with Steven Graf, co-founder of ParrotMD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07vC9ohKyyg&feature=youtu.be

IDH: When did you start the company?

GRAF: ParrotMD started in January 2014.

IDH: How did you develop the business concept?

GRAF: I was working in a medical clinic in Ghana and found that half the patients who came to our clinic returned without improving, or they were even sicker. They could not read the medical prescription instructions we were writing to them because they were illiterate.

Many patients would not take the medication at all because they were afraid to touch it without knowing how to take it; others would take multiple doses at once thinking more medication would help them heal quicker.

After returning from Ghana, I teamed up with Charles Fayal and we created a few prototypes for a recording device that would allow physicians and pharmacists to audibly record prescription directions for illiterate patients in these countries. After testing the devices in Guatemala and getting good feedback, we began making more devices abroad. We also found that there were many patients in the U.S. who could benefit from the device, including elderly patients, eye care patients and patients who did not speak English.

IDH:  What services does ParrotMD provide?

GRAF: Currently ParrotMD sells a prescription recording device to caretakers and medical clinics throughout the world. The end users are patients who are visually impaired, do not speak English or are illiterate.

IDH: How did you get involved in the reSET Impact Challenge?

GRAF: After speaking with a few people at reSET, we found that they had so much to offer. Our goal at ParrotMD to help patients take their medications correctly aligned well under the social enterprise theme that was central to the Impact Challenge.

We want to be a health services company that will offer innovative solutions to help patients adhere to their medications and participate more in their health.

IDH: What’s your advice for entrepreneurs or startup business owners?

GRAF: The big piece of advice I have for entrepreneurs and startup business owners is to stay persistent, keep an open mind to various opportunities and never stop trying to improve on your product.