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Wisdom and Advice from Connecticut Entrepreneurs
Connecticut entrepreneurs share about their entrepreneurial experiences—successes, failures, and lessons learned. Your entrepreneurial experience inspires and encourages others. Share your story with us.

Entrepreneurial Insights Posts

7 Entrepreneurs Share the Greatest Lessons Learned From 2016

February 24 2017 Innovation Destination: Hartford Entrepreneurial Insights 0 comments Tags: Connecticut, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, Greater Hartford, startup lessons, startups

Innovation Destination Hartford met with dozens of entrepreneurs in 2016 from all types of industries and all stages of growth. Here’s what 7 of them have to say they learned over the course of the year.

Ayelet Connell, President of Integrative Wellness & Physical Therapy, advices those who are thinking of launching a startup to take the path of least resistance.

Ayelet Connell-Giammatteo, President Integrative Wellness & Physical Therapy

The greatest lesson I learned this past year is about balance. Specifically, balance in my life. In addition to being the founder and president of two businesses, I am also the mother of two young children and the wife of a wonderful man.

Historically, my priorities in life were work, work, work. I think this is pretty common, particularly for women who are trying to have it all—a work life and home life—we tend to put the work plate on a pedestal.

This past year, I realized I actually could have it all, by changing the pedestal to a sturdy table! I have shifted my schedule so that some of my free time is in the afternoon/evening to be able to spend time with my family and also have some time for myself. I find I have more energy in my day and my time at work is more productive and well-spent, but also—most importantly—I’m happier and more fulfilled!

Tim Kussow, Founder Bariatric Collar

Get contacts, contacts, and more contacts. You can’t do it alone. And use the experience others have—connect with organizations like Innovation Destination Hartford!

Carolyn Paine, Founder CONNetic Dance

The greatest lesson I learned from 2016 is that life really is about how you deal with those amazing highs and those devastating lows. And I’m pretty sure I'm not alone on this.

It feels like so many of us were forced to relearn this important lesson in 2016. This year for me was filled with some of the most incredible opportunities and achievements professionally, but at the same time those great moments were mixed in with some of the lowest, darkest times personally as well as some big professional struggles.

But it’s how you deal with it, how you keep going that really defines you. 2016 reminded me that when everything is the worst, just hang tight, do the best you can to deal with it all, and then just wait, because the absolute best could be just the next moment away. At least you have to believe that—otherwise you’ll end up a mess sobbing over David Bowie, Princess Leia, politics, and that project you failed at.

Holly Wheeler, Founder Field to Face Organics and Co-Founder of Vasu Tribe

Protect your magic. As an entrepreneur, your creative ideas and strategies are the gold mine of your business, and you need to protect them.

Trademark and copyright your concepts. Be very selective in choosing who you bounce your ideas off of during the budding stage. Keep a small team of trusted creatives that you can mastermind your ideas with and don’t share your ideas with the world until they are in motion, ready to be launched.

Molly Baker is Founder of Let’s Start From Scratch.

Molly Baker, Founder Let’s Start From Scratch

My best moments as an entrepreneur are when I hear from my clients how happy they are with my product. For example, this summer, when Let’s Start From Scratch was only three months old, I was selling my products at the West End Farmers Market when a busy mom told me that buying my sauces and prepared items made her days easier and how much she and her family loved them. Hearing that I’m making my clients lives easier, happier, and healthier is what made 2016 amazing as a startup business owner.

Mark Keeley, Co-Founder Obvia

The greatest lesson we learned in 2016 is that consistent persistence pays off.

We were interested in obtaining a Kiva loan this past year. In order to qualify for an $8,000 loan campaign, we first needed 15 friends to each loan us $25. After that, Kiva launched our $8,000 campaign globally. In accordance with the rules, we were given 30 days (and no more) to sell our wind turbine oyster farm idea to anyone in the world who was interested in helping us power our proposed oyster farm using 100% wind power generated from our newly invented wind turbine.

We consistently and persistently updated the world on our progress and—who would have guessed—we made 200 international friends who helped us reach our $8,000 goal in only 10 days; three times faster than required.

Abby Kelly, Founder Gluten-Free Connecticut

The greatest lesson I learned from 2016 is to not underestimate myself. I began the year with an idea, a bunch of data, and a lot of self-doubt. I ended it with a thriving website.

In between, I worked slowly but diligently, creating the foundation for a business and then building it up, completing each step carefully and completely.

That’s just the way I work—slowly and deliberately. Turns out hard work, focus, and commitment can actually bring success.

Get more tips from Hartford-area entrepreneurs. Read our story Successful Entrepreneurs Offer Advice for Budding Entrepreneurs.

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Taking Risks, Serving Customers Key to Sustaining Success

February 13 2017 Innovation Destination: Hartford Entrepreneurial Insights 0 comments Tags: Connecticut, Connecticut By The Numbers, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, risk taking

This Perspective piece by Mickey Herbert originally appeared in Connecticut by the Numbers February 4, 2016.

A few years ago, I was asked to talk to a group about my career as an entrepreneur. I had never considered myself an entrepreneur, but I realized that I had taken risks in my professional life that were, in retrospect, pretty significant. Here’s what I had to say regarding risk taking and a company’s corporate culture.

My parents were always my mentors, teaching me integrity, and how to be respectful of others. I’m not sure how they taught me to be a risk taker, but somehow, I think I got that from them too.

Nobody in my family had ever gone to college, and I remember when my Swarthmore College acceptance letter came in the mail to our home my father took it to work before I even saw it. He wanted to show it to all the PhDs he worked for at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

He hadn’t finished college because of WWII, but he had learned glass blowing in the Navy and he was the only one who could build those lasers they designed. He was also a terrific athlete, a football and baseball player in the mold of Babe Ruth, who might have played professional sports except he opted to be the first kid on his block to enlist after Pearl Harbor.

So, in a very real sense, he encouraged me to take the risks he never had the opportunity to take. Above all else, he wanted me to go to college and/or to play professional baseball, the two life choices that had eluded him because of the war.

Throughout my life, I have always wanted to live up to the person my father wanted me to be—indeed, to be the person he wanted to be if circumstances in our country were different, almost 80 years ago.

To quote Mark Twain, one of our state’s most famous citizens, who died over 100 years ago, “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, dream, discover.”

So, with a firm sense of right and wrong, but no money to speak of, I went off to college in Pennsylvania, foregoing, by the way, an opportunity to sign a professional baseball contract. After college, I went straight to the Harvard Business School, then to New York City for a couple years before I headed to Minnesota—where I didn’t know a single person in the upper Midwest.

Six years later, I set sail for Connecticut where, again, I did not know a single person in this state, but I was determined to become a successful CEO of a new health plan that would challenge Blue Cross and Blue Shield—Connecticut’s dominant health insurer—covering most of our state’s 3.5 million residents. I also took advantage of an opportunity to play fast-pitch softball with the Raybestos Cardinals in Stratford, the defending national fast-pitch champions at that time.

Management guru Tom Peters has said that the greatest predictor of one’s success in business is one’s willingness to take risks. I used to have a sign in my office that said “Mistakes don’t matter, it’s the response to error that counts.” In other words, I believe we should all be risk takers, and not be afraid to make mistakes; but when you do make one (and I’ve made a few doozies in my life), learn from it so you won’t make that mistake again.

Because I was a CEO from 1976 to 2010 (and am now one again), I had the incredible opportunity over three and a half decades to define the corporate culture at three companies—PHS, the Bridgeport Bluefish, and ConnectiCare. In looking back, I realize that so much of what made these three companies special is very simple. Peter Drucker once said that successful management is doing a few simple things and doing them well. For me, it was figuring out what business we were in, and then sticking to the knitting.

  • At PHS, and then again at ConnectiCare, we determined that our business was delivering the highest quality, affordable health care, with unsurpassed customer service, to the citizens of our region. Notice that I said nothing about health insurance. At PHS, we had a slogan, “Intensive Caring” that we trademarked and ingrained into every employee we hired.
  • At ConnectiCare, our slogan, and theme song, was “You Know Us by Heart,” which carried the very same message.
  • At the Bluefish, we determined at the very outset that we were in the business of delivering the highest quality, affordable, family entertainment to the citizens of our region. Notice I didn’t say anything about professional baseball. We made the ballpark a happy, happening place where people wanted to be, a veritable town meeting place, a place where they could be proud to be in and from, Bridgeport, a place where something was going wonderfully right in a city that had often seen things go wrong.

At all three companies, we made all kinds of decisions to increase our likelihood of success, not the least of which was to hire the best people we could, provide them with extraordinary training, and then empower them to go out and make decisions on their own. What I guess it is about more than anything else is having a totally focused, customer-friendly culture.

I feel very fortunate to be able now, at the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, to continue the legacy.

About the Author
Mickey Herbert is President and CEO of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council.

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Successful Entrepreneurs Offer Advice for Budding Entrepreneurs

February 08 2017 Innovation Destination: Hartford Entrepreneurial Insights 0 comments Tags: Connecticut, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, Greater Hartford, startup lessons, startups

Innovation Destination Hartford asked nine Connecticut entrepreneurs: Looking ahead to 2017, what’s the best piece of advice you can offer for budding entrepreneurs? Here are their answers.

Matt Connell, Co-Founder Yellowbrick.me
I would say to other entrepreneurs to have a plan and follow a strategy.

Samuel King, Guru of Marketing and Business Development Blue Earth Compost
My advice is to never say no to a new opportunity or to somebody new asking for help.

Regardless of how small the opportunity is, it can lead to bigger things and it helps to build the community and network your business needs and Hartford needs as well.

I think that encouraging a culture of cooperation is very important.

Eric Bryant, Founder Text Engine
I’d say that it’s okay to keep your day job and build your enterprise on the side. Doing so doesn’t make you any less of an entrepreneur or your enterprise any less of a real business.

Patrick McGinnis, a successful Silicon Valley businessman, highly praises what he calls the “10% entrepreneur.” This is the entrepreneur who doesn’t do it full time but builds both a corporate career and side business.

Social entrepreneur Chad Moir is Founder of DopaFit, an online personal training company for people who suffer from Parkinson’s disease.

This is the path I had to take with Text Engine, and I’ve found it is the path most budding entrepreneurs have to take. Don’t let anyone tell you that entrepreneurship has to be about taking unjustifiable risks or working at a startup 100 hours a week. That isn’t the right path for everyone; we’re all situated differently in life and have varying levels of familial and social responsibilities.

Additionally, your side hustle can benefit your employer by giving you more skill sets and teaching you how to think like an owner.

Your day job benefits your side business by allowing you to be able to build what you want and not worry as much about satisfying market demand—and it gives you a steady income you can use to invest in your business. To me, it’s a win-win if you can approach it with the right mindset and manage your time carefully.

Doug Breakstone, Founder TruckHike.com
The best piece of advice I can offer a new entrepreneur is to realize that they cannot do it all themselves. They must surround themselves with the best, the brightest, and those with the most impact and knowledge in their chosen industry.

Forming a knowledgeable board of advisors is a wonderful way to increase the new business’ credibility and help to ensure its success. These are unpaid positions filled by industry leaders looking to help an entrepreneur succeed, just as they were helped putting their businesses together. A solid board can provide an entrepreneur with information and contacts they would not be able to generate on their own.

People are willing to help, you just need to ask them.

Kyle S. Reyes, President/CEO, The Silent Partner Marketing
Quit complaining. Mondays don’t suck. Business isn’t bad. The economy isn’t in the tank. It’s all a state of mind...and if your state of mind is that things aren’t where you want them to be, it’s simply because you’re not hustling hard enough and your attitude is in the toilet. Fix those two things and you’ll crush it in 2017.

Ripi Singh President and Innovator, Plus4pi
Rejection from potential customers and investors is a given. Seeking constructive feedback and acting on it is optional. And that is how you eventually turn the odds in your favor.

Robert Kwasnicki, Founder/Principal, Digital Marketing Partner
The best piece of advice I can offer a budding entrepreneur for 2017 and beyond is be properly capitalized—have an adequate amount of funding in the bank to get you through the first one to three years.

Also, in addition to intimately knowing your market and competitors, be a student of demographics. Understanding even the basics of demographic data can provide your business with an edge over your competitors.

Take care of yourself—eat well, exercise, and make sure you are getting proper sleep when you have the opportunity. You will need all the internal resources you have to push through the challenging times when your faith in your vision comes under pressure.

Charlie Bogoian, Co-Founder Kenai Sports
I would advise entrepreneurs to remain adaptable to change—and always ready to quickly identify problems (and their corresponding solutions).

The pace of technological change will not slow in the coming years and many industries are likely to continue experiencing significant changes. The entrepreneurial mindset will allow startups and new ventures to take these changes and turn them into opportunities.

Chad Moir, DopaFit
Be impatiently patient. Nothing happens overnight. Work like you wanted it done it yesterday but do not give up if things do not happen as fast as you want. Expectations rarely become reality. Always be ready to adapt.

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Entrepreneurs Heart Greater Hartford: Hartford Prints!

January 31 2017 Innovation Destination: Hartford Entrepreneurial Insights 0 comments

A collaboration between Hartford Young Professionals & Entrepreneurs (HYPE) and reSET Social Enterprise, the Entrepreneurs Heart Greater Hartford blog series showcases the commitment Greater Hartford entrepreneurs have for their work and the city of Hartford. The videos examine how young entrepreneurs have chosen their work and provide examples of the ways in which they are making an impact in their communities.

Hartford Prints! created a startup to celebrate the community. “Most of our products are focused on promoting Hartford and Connecticut and really having a way for people to show their pride for their city and the state as a whole,” says Rory Gale, Co-Founder Hartford Prints!

“What do I love about Hartford?” asks Rory. “I love our community. I love the richness the city has to offer. I love that there’s so much support within our community.”

Watch the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iosqgQ0Haj8&feature=youtu.be

 

In 2015 Hartford Prints! received a Silver award at the reSET Impact Awards, which honors innovative, impactful, and viable early-stage ventures and startups.

Find out more about Hartford Prints! Read our interview with startup Co-Founder Callie Gale Heilmann.

Interested in meeting more entrepreneurs who love Hartford? Watch more videos:

 

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Entrepreneurs Heart Greater Hartford: FRESH Farm Aquaponics

January 10 2017 Innovation Destination: Hartford Entrepreneurial Insights 0 comments Tags: community, Connecticut, entrepreneurs, FRESH Farm Aquaponics, Hartford, Hartford Young Professionals & Entrepreneurs, HYPE, reSET

The Entrepreneurs Heart Greater Hartford blog series is a collaboration between Hartford Young Professionals & Entrepreneurs (HYPE) and reSET Social Enterprise.

The videos showcase the commitment Greater Hartford entrepreneurs have for their work and the city of Hartford, examine how young entrepreneurs have chosen their work, and provide examples of the ways in which they are making an impact in their communities.

“Hartford really is burgeoning,” says Kieran Foran Partner at FRESH Farm Aquaponics, Inc.

“There are a lot of resources in the city to help young startups get their businesses growing, find other businesses they can connect with, or just find individuals who can offer them some help and support in the tumultuous early years of a startup,” he adds.

“We love Hartford,” emphasizes CEO Spencer Curry. “Right now it’s just really exciting to be able to actually give back.”

Watch the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhqpzw8NgoM&feature=youtu.be

Find out how FRESH Farm Aquaponics set out to create an innovative startup based on an idea to make Hartford “the city that feeds itself.”
Read our interview with entrepreneur Spencer Curry.

Interested in meeting more entrepreneurs who love Hartford? Watch more videos:

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Entrepreneur Uses Healthcare Navigation Book to Launch Startup

December 28 2016 Innovation Destination: Hartford Entrepreneurial Insights 0 comments

Randi Oster is Co-Founder and President of Help Me Health and author of Questioning Protocol, an award-winning book that helps patients navigate the healthcare system and medical professionals understand the patient perspective.

Randi spoke to Innovation Destination Hartford about her experience as a serial entrepreneur and how her book helped to shape her latest startup.

IDH: You have an extensive background launching startups and becoming a successful entrepreneur. Can you share a little about that journey?

RO: I have an electrical engineering degree. After I graduated from college, I started work right out of the box at General Electric. I worked in aerospace and was in charge of the new products for aircraft engines. I learned a lot about working with teams to come up with innovative new designs and work with innovative new materials.

From there, I went on to work at GE Capital, where I won the President’s Innovation Award in 1991. Back then we didn’t have the internet or apps to create. We had to rethink processes, products, and promotion to come up with new creative customer solutions. I became known as the innovation leader in the company and my passion moved from starting products to starting businesses.

IDH: Any takeaways from those experiences?

RO: Yes, the only time you fail is when you quit. Sometimes instead of quitting, take the time to learn and then redirect your efforts. I learned this approach works for all startups.

I launched many businesses and product business lines for GE Capital—from energy to consumer business. The product and customers may have varied but the formula for success didn’t vary. Listen to your customers. Find a way to meet their needs and then apply the key ingredient to ensure a successful launch. Persistence.

At GE Capital, they referred to me as an “intrapreneur,” which is someone who is an entrepreneur within a company. The process is incredibly similar to skunks tanks, where you put your business plan together, pitch to the CEO, get the money, and run with it.

There’s only one difference between being an intrapreneur and an entrepreneur. And it’s a major one. It is funding. Intrapreneurs get money from their company. Plus, I got paid a salary to start the business. If it failed I had no personal financial loss.

But all the other pieces of a startup were the same. It starts with a business plan. Once approved by management, I still had to market, build the product, and hire a sales force. Even as an intrapreneur, the initial team was small. So I had to get trademarks, outsource key vendors, and pick logos. But when my computer crashed, I got to call the company’s IT department.

I made mistakes but it was on the company’s dime. I think I learned more from the mistakes than I did from the successes. Mistakes require rethinking. Mistakes require an honest look at your approach. Mistakes require trying again. Mistakes require learning. Those lessons built my confidence to know that I am resilient. As an entrepreneur you need to know that you find ways overcome whatever issues you face. Your team will look to you for reassurance when things are harder than expected.

IDH: How did those experiences help you recognize a new business opportunity?

RO: At GE I learned how to discover market trends, develop innovative solutions for new product introductions, and motivate a team.

Back in 2009, my son was experiencing some complications from Crohn’s disease and I had to spend a lot of time with him in the hospital. I just assumed all business operated at the efficiency and productivity levels of GE.

After the third person asked my son the same question about allergies, I started to think of process improvements for the hospital. I remember, the more time I watched healthcare workers navigate their inefficient system, the more I thought: The planes would fall out of the sky if we did things like this.

I couldn’t believe the process. We didn’t know when the doctor was coming in. I don’t think they did either. We didn’t understand what was happening and it didn’t seem to be part of the process to explain it to us. My son was just so miserable. I told him: We are going to fix this. We are going to fix healthcare. They have to understand that this isn’t working for us.

I knew I had the skills to try to figure out how to improve the system. I started taking notes in the hospital. I have an MBA focused on operations. And I thought: I’ll just start to give the hospital some suggestions.

My son ended up with a complication from surgery. He was re-hospitalized three weeks later. I started to use my Six Sigma Quality hat to figure out what the hospital could do differently. The more I wrote the more I realized that the lessons I was sharing to improve my son’s hospital experience could help the hospital he was in as well as other healthcare institutions. Plus, the same techniques I used could help empower patients and loved ones to learn how to navigate the healthcare system with confidence. I turned my notes into a book called Questioning Protocol.

Randi Oster is Co-Founder and President of Help Me Health.

IDH: Tell us about the book and how it factors into Help Me Health.

RO: Sometimes our journey takes us on a path we do not expect. In this case, I wrote a Questioning Protocol and turned it into a business. The book is the personal story of how I helped my son build a high-performing healthcare team focused on his needs. The business trains employees to meet the needs of patients by understanding what they want.

This business side launched because Kathleen Cattrall, a trailblazer in customer experience and cultural change, read the book and got in touch with me. She told me: We can take everything you’ve talked about in Questioning Protocol and change the culture of hospitals so that they become more patient-centered.

As I talked to Kathleen on the phone, I believed her. Sometimes you take a risk. I could not pay her to develop the courses. We decided to join forces to develop training modules based on the book and industry best practices to improve the patient experience and the hospital bottom line.

In 2015, we combined Kathleen’s incredible background at Time Warner Cable and my background and started Help Me Health. We found other industry leaders to help us build our product.

The methodology we’re using at Help Me Health is a proven training system that really gets cultural change happening in a rapid, engaging way.
IDH: How are you working to achieve that?

RO: We have workshops that help train healthcare employees. The key to success is a quality product. Especially when you are new to a market and trying to sell into a customer base with established vendors. Therefore, you need visibility and results that can speak as testimonials.

For example, we’ve recently presented at the Planetree conference in Chicago and a representative from the Veteran Affairs Office said we were the best practice of the event. In December, the Connecticut Hospital Association had us do an afternoon workshop for area hospitals and our feedback score was 3.9 out of 4.

Our next step is to pilot with major hospitals and complete pre- and post-testing for patient satisfaction and employee engagement measures. Bottom line results are even better than testimonials.

IDH: Where do you see the company going in the next few years?

RO: We hope to be working with many hospitals on patient experience initiatives and helping them look at their processes from the patient perspective. We provide the tools for healthcare employees to develop successful strategies and tactics to improve the patient journey.

By facilitating the hospital employees’ hands-on learning about patients’ emotional needs the patients, we expect to be a major force to improve the culture within the healthcare system.

IDH: Any advice for those launching their own startups?

RO: There is a lot of noise when you’re starting a business. I think it’s hard to figure out how to focus. You need to focus very clearly on the right next step, otherwise you can dilute yourself and you won’t get where you need to go. That discipline is hard because there’s so much to do and you have to figure out what are the steps.

Think of it as concentric circles—small circles that get larger and larger. You can define the vision as the outer circle, but to get to that big vision—which is what we all have as entrepreneurs have—you have got to first get to the first circle. That’s the discipline. The entrepreneur is thinking about the big circle, but you have to start at that first circle and then grow and learn. That’s what has really helped us focus.

Learn more about Help Me Health at www.helpme-health.com.

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Entrepreneurs Heart Greater Hartford: Carmen Veal

December 15 2016 Innovation Destination: Hartford Entrepreneurial Insights 0 comments Tags: community, Connecticut, entrepreneurs, Hartford, Hartford Young Professionals & Entrepreneurs, HYPE, reSET

The Entrepreneurs Heart Greater Hartford blog series is a collaboration between Hartford Young Professionals & Entrepreneurs (HYPE) and reSET Social Enterprise.

The videos showcase the commitment Greater Hartford entrepreneurs have for their work and the city of Hartford, examine how young entrepreneurs have chosen their work, and provide examples of the ways in which they are making an impact in their communities.

Entrepreneur Carmen Veal, owner of four Hartford-based companies, says she wanted to “build an empire” in the city of Hartford. Watch the video.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RwAAIOquvA

Interested in meeting more entrepreneurs who love Hartford? Watch more videos:

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IEDC President Congratulates MetroHartford Alliance for IDH Website Success

November 28 2016 Innovation Destination: Hartford Entrepreneurial Insights 0 comments Tags: Hartford, IEDC, Innovation Destination: Hartford, International Economic Development Council, MetroHartford Alliance, start and grow business
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Connecticut Automotive Parts Company Shares Success Story

November 18 2016 Innovation Destination: Hartford Entrepreneurial Insights 0 comments Tags: business, Connecticut, success

Find out how FCP Euro transitioned from a brick-and-mortar to an online company, the challenges the company faced, and how it ultimately found success.

Watch the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MLYw-JQH1c

FCP Euro Chief Executive Officer Scott Drozd co-founded Young Entrepreneurs Leading Our World (YELOW).

Learn more about YELOW by reading our interview with Scott.

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BiCi Co. — Connecting Hartford’s Community

November 14 2016 Innovation Destination: Hartford Entrepreneurial Insights 0 comments Tags: BiCi Co., community, Connecticut, Hartford, Park Street, social enterprise

BiCi Co. (Bicicletas y Comunidad) serves to promote youth and adult bicycle safety and increase the community’s mobility and access to jobs in the City of Hartford. The program, which is run through the Center for Latino Progress, offers many opportunities for community and youth engagement, including:

  • Earn-a-Bike, a hands-on bicycle-based learning program for Hartford-area teens ages 13–19.
  • Summer Youth Employment, a program that enables teens to complete a service learning program while learning about bicycle safety, Hartford history, and bike science.
  • Women’s Committee (Belles of Bici Co.), a group formed to ensure that Harford women and girls have access to bicycles and can ride safely. Holding Women’s DIY Hours on Monday nights.
  • Bicycles for Jobs Access, a client referral program that collaborates with local shelters and transition programs.
  • Traffic Skills 101, periodic bicycle safety, skills, and special-topic courses.
  • DIY Member Hours, which allow paid or equity members to work on their own bicycles.
  • BIKELIFE – HARTFORD! , an annual bicycle safety education program in April that provides an upcycled bicycle to Hartford youth and teens who complete a bicycle safety course. Volunteers will be working all winter to get 100 bikes tuned up for BIKELIFE 2017.

Anthony Cherolis is the Youth Program Director for the Center for Latino Progress and Program Manager of BiCi Co.

Anthony Cherolis is the Youth Program Director for the Center for Latino Progress and Program Manager of BiCi Co.

Anthony Cherolis, the Youth Program Director for the Center for Latino Progress and Program Manager of BiCi Co., told Innovation Destination Hartford Website Curator Nan Price about how the program came to be and the importance of becoming a social enterprise.

PRICE: You founded BiCi Co. in the summer of 2015. How did you develop the idea?

CHEROLIS: I was at Pratt and Whitney for 14 years and joined the Center for Latino Progress as their Youth Program Coordinator early in 2015. My role was initially to run the college prep program. And then being a small nonprofit, you fill in wherever needed.

The Center for Latino Progress provides service learning projects and internships for teens through Capital Workforce Partners. In the summer of 2015 we were brainstorming ideas for good service learning projects.

I have a background as a league cycling instructor, teaching bike safety and repair skills. I’m also an experienced mechanic. When I lived in Champaign, IL, I spent three years on the steering committee for a cooperative bike shop. The idea of something bike-related started there.

Yanil Terón, the Center’s Executive Director, asked, “What can we do with the students with bikes—because we know they love them.”

It had been in the back of my head. There had already been some meetings among a group of folks in Hartford to see how a community bicycle shop or cooperative could be brought to fruition. I recognized the summer youth employment opportunity and I thought that could be part of those projects, but I wondered about a bigger-picture idea of a community bike workshop, so I proposed that.

Community bikes shops are a common form of social enterprise in other cities and they often have youth program components, recycle-a-bike-type of components, and other teaching components.

I gathered information about programs I was familiar with and I said: How about something like this—Hartford doesn’t have a bike shop. There’s a need for this.

And Yanil, who is also a recreational cyclist, saw it as an even larger opportunity that could involve job training. So in July of 2015 we started BiCi Co’s program to support the summer Youth Employment Program project and built a shop on the first floor of the same building that houses the Center and the Spanish American Merchant’s Association (SAMA). SAMA owns the building.

PRICE: How has the program evolved since then?

CHEROLIS: We began with the Summer Youth Employment program and we started some prototype do-it-yourself (DIY) member hours. We ran a crowdfunding campaign at the end of 2015 to get the membership aspect started. We also started a prototype Earn-a-Bike program.

BiCi Co. also runs a number of fall programs.

PRICE: And you are working to make BiCi Co. a social enterprise.

CHEROLIS: Yes. The social enterprise aspect of BiCi Co. has three primary components: education and training, a community bicycle workshop, and plans for a Park Street storefront.

With regard to the storefront, right now, we've got our sales tax ID and a point of sale system. We’ve been doing sales during our DIY hours, but we’re waiting on space expansion (and grant funds to support that) to open the storefront aspect. At this point, the social enterprise aspect is gestational, but developing.

The biggest deal lately is that Hartford’s City Council adopted a Complete Streets ordinance. That plus the zoning Complete Streets chapter will reshape the city streets over the next three to five years with more focus on resident, walker, and bike rider safety.

PRICE: In what ways does BiCi Co. contribute to the overall community, enhance economic growth, and create jobs?

CHEROLIS: People who use active transportation tend to spend their money locally. We like to promote active transportation—walking, biking, and transit as part of the mode shift in Hartford to something that’s healthy and more financially efficient for people getting around the city.

It’s great for people who live in downtown apartments. It’s great for people who live in a rental in a neighborhood. And at the end of the day, they all have more money to spend at all businesses on economies that aren’t extractive. We see that as the larger picture.

PRICE: And how are bicycles a useful jobs access tool?

CHEROLIS: Bicycle use is a cost-effective and powerful tool to improve urban mobility and employment access. The big picture is mode share and putting money back into the economy because you’re not taking it out with a single-occupancy vehicle.

Riding a bicycle can give a larger range to anybody who is working or job searching. Instead of being restricted to a 1-mile radius their radius is 5 to 10 miles. Their access is that much better.

Jobs access is key and it ties back to the Center’s mission of serving the community and being a job training and job placement hub for the Latino community and the Park Street area.

bicico_bikesPRICE: BiCi Co. has been described as kind of “makerspace for bicycles.” The program teaches skills in building and mechanics. Is that all translatable to other jobs?

CHEROLIS: We like to think so. We’re working on the framework for something where it’s a staged program. Where youth engage in something that may be initially unstructured, but they have opportunities to go take formal classes or be trained as a mechanic as they progress in experience. That opportunity for them to grow may be to join our college prep program.

We’ve also had some community members engaging us in a way that is directly impacting their economic development. They might not be employed, but they can come in, fix a bike, and sell it. And that makes all the difference in the world to them to help make ends meet. Our bikes for jobs access is an immediate tool for those that get referred to BiCi Co. and start using a bicycle to get to a new job.

PRICE: What does Hartford and your presence here mean to BiCi Co.?

CHEROLIS: We see ourselves as a node between Downtown and Park Street. BiCi Co. is connecting people from Park Street and our south end neighborhoods to those they may not have met before in a space where they both have a shared love. It also helps people who live a few blocks away explore new places, like a great breakfast joint that may not have been on their radar before. I think it’s important that we’re on Park Street and expanding horizons for everyone involved.

Learn more about BiCi Co. by visiting www.bicico.org.  

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Do you have a Hartford success story? Are you a budding startup or a successful entrepreneur eager to share your experiences? Contact us today and tell your story!

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