Cutting-edge engineering and software design can be pricey – especially for early-stage companies that need it the most.
One local digital studio is introducing an alternative model into the Buffalo market, designed to incentivize both the companies and the technologists they hire to build their early platforms.
Helm Experience & Design’s “venture studio” is a formalized work-for-equity service, where entrepreneurs pay for software work with equity in their company. The work will focus on building the initial software product and determining its market fit.
It’s a model Helm has dabbled in before — hitting a home run in their work with ACV Auctions — but is now being formalized and branded as the Helm Ventures program. The company will also consider direct investment into Helm Ventures companies.
“For the past seven years, we worked to support and grow Western New York's startup ecosystem,” said Nicholas Barone, partner at Helm. “The creation of Helm Ventures is the culmination of the lessons we’ve learned working with and alongside most of the startups to emerge from that ecosystem.”
Barone co-founded Helm with Jonathan Gorczyca in 2014. The company has steadily grown since then, with about 14 employees and average annual growth rates of about 30%.
Helm will continue providing services to more mature clients under the traditional work model. The Helm Ventures program is a way of supplementing that work with bets on high-upside startups. It’s also a way for senior employees to participate in that upside without themselves becoming angel investors.
The technology movement has had a major impact on Buffalo in recent years, changing longtime institutions and creating new ones. Just last week, Rural Sourcing announced it would open a contract development hub in Buffalo and hire up to 150 employees in the coming years.
That dynamic has created the opportunity for regional growth, but led to intense local competition for high-quality technologists.
Helm has sought to counteract that by providing employees with the opportunity to work on high-value projects where they can grow alongside clients. The company has been hiring employees who have enrolled in training programs for technology – recent hires have come from the manufacturing, retail and education industries.
And the company is looking at formalizing a hands-on apprenticeship program for recent university graduates.
“Helm is embedded with its companies, fighting the good fight and asking the hard questions to help shape their products,” Gorczyca said. “We’re trying to provide a clear growth path and an impact on the community, so that the work you are doing is getting shipped and into end users’ hands.”
