Sunday, August 13, 2000
New Economy
Main Street knows road to success
The problem with success is that you have to deal with it. That's what Main Street Ventures is facing.
The Over-the-Rhine incubator organization began life last summer as a way to bring together resources that would help local dot-coms get off the ground.
There was an amount of wisdom that went into recognizing that these businesses had needs that were different from a run-
of-the-mill business startup: big upfront investment, a need for technical people, a need to exist and pay bills for some time before the first dollar in revenue arrived, let alone the first dollar of profit.
The proof of that wisdom is in Main Street Ventures' popularity — the crowded monthly networking events, the breakless meeting calendars, the unanswered e-mail.
Despite the crush, pointman George Molinsky, the chairman and co-founder of MSV, is unfailingly pleasant but still a bit bemused.
“The flow, it just keeps on coming and coming,” he said. A database the group maintains has 1,000 names in it. “Several hundred companies are plugged into what we're doing.”
A year old, Main Street Ventures is getting real. It has more than $700,000 in funding, from sources public and private.
And MSV has hired two of its founders, Dave Noonan and Brad Wolfe, to be co-executive directors. Those are part-time, paid positions, and the companies they work for have both agreed to let them spend time on this.
Starting the next year's work is simple. The group has a Web site (www.digitalrhine.com) but no phone number. “They should have a number to call,” Mr. Noonan said. From there, it's on to hiring an assistant, setting up an office and beginning to figure out how local startups can access MSV's support network.
“I think there's a lot of deals out there we see, but there's a lot we don't see,” Mr. Noonan said. “They don't know how to engage us.”
Mr. Molinsky said the group has met its first-year goals:
• Find out what's going on. Its recent, informal census found 73 tech firms along a Main Street axis downtown, from Third Street into Over-the-Rhine.
• Find folks willing to play. Translated, that means, “willing to work with credit risks.” The law firm Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, where Mr. Molinsky is an associate, stepped up to back MSV and many local startups. Technology companies such as Broadwing, Oracle, Microsoft, Compaq and marchFIRST, as well as consultants such as HSR B2B, have joined the effort.
• Get buy-in from the local establishment. They don't get any more establishment than the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and Procter & Gamble, and both have seats on this bandwagon.
That buy-in came by convincing people that the local tech scene “is not a band of teen-agers running around Over-the-Rhine,” Mr. Molinsky said. Four MSV companies have received venture capital and “graduated.” The group has leased space to house startups in four Over-the-Rhine buildings and is looking for more.
The urgency to formalizing MSV, to establish a sort of regularity, has a reason. “We think there's going to be another uptick, to another level,” Mr. Molinsky said.
Believe him. These guys were right a year ago.
E-mail John Byczkowski at johnb@enquirer.com
or call 768-8377. Find a list of local New Economy companies at http://enquirer.com/neweconomy/
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