Two hometown guys get the opportunity to move to the big city.
It’s a tale we’ve heard many times before, but in the case of Jonathan Gorczyca and Nicholas Barone, it’s one with a happy ending for Buffalo.
The entrepreneurs had the option over a decade ago to move to San Francisco to work for a movie studio focused on technology. But the two software engineers opted to stay and build in Buffalo, even though the grassroots movement to build the local startup ecosystem was just in its infancy.
“Yes, there’s that pull to go elsewhere, but it was never strong enough to fully do it,” Barone said. “I like to do things the hard way, and it’s just like let’s do it here because it would be so much more meaningful. … There wasn’t even that much tech work here (then). It was more a naïvete that we could just do this.”
Around 2010, they began meeting with a small group of tech-minded Buffalonians in what would become known as the Buffalo Open Coffee Club.
“That was the energy,” Gorczyca said. “Everything was sort of, ‘Hey, you can create something from nothing, and you don’t have to work in corporate America in Buffalo to be an entrepreneur.'"
In 2014, the pair launched Helm Experience and Design, a digital product studio. Since then, the team has worked with 120 local companies, including some work-for-equity informally with startups like early-stage ACV.
The business began with a focus on startups and had a front-row seat to dozens of emerging tech companies while working for years out of the 43North incubator space in the Thomas R. Beecher Jr. Innovation Center.
Helm, which employs 11, has targeted what clients should build as opposed to what they could build. They will work on early-stage startup pitches to make sure there’s a commercialization plan, rather than just focusing on getting Helm short-term business.
“That builds long-term trust right out of the gate, and it’s not transactional,” Gorczyca said. “Through the friction, you find the gold.”
Over time, the founders realized that the same digital product needs applied to mid- to large-sized companies and nonprofits. Those types of clients, which include Shea’s Performing Arts Center, the Buffalo History Museum and OnCore Golf, really exploded during the pandemic and now are a big opportunity for Helm’s continued growth.
“They’ve seen what ACV did and they’ve realized, ‘Oh, we could actually incubate something like that internally,’ ” Barone said. “All of these companies here have that need or that potential.”
The business was growing at an annual rate of about 30% up until about 2020. Since then, growth has stayed steady.
Helm also organically works on its own software ideas and products and has launched about half a dozen. One of its products, called Mentordeck.com, helps manage mentors at incubators and accelerators and has paid users across the globe.
The team is currently working on Goodgrowth.ai, a platform where small groups of people can have tech-enabled, confidential discussions as opposed to large, diluted public networks.
Ultimately, Gorczyca and Barone launched Helm because they believed in the local tech startup community’s potential and wanted to build a services company that supports it. While there’s still work to be done, the co-founders can reflect on the ecosystem’s journey so far with pride.
“What we saw 10 years ago and why we started Helm … that actually worked,” Barone said. “It’s amazing.”
