Greater Green Bay dreamers, innovators and entrepreneurs now have access to more startup resources after the recent opening of the “Startup Hub” — a centralized facility offering a wide scope of programming and resources to early stage businesses.
Located at 2701 Larsen Road, The Startup Hub offers 50,000 square feet of freshly remodeled space, including conference rooms, offices, common areas, and a manufacturing bay.
The hub is the latest iteration of an incubator that first opened in 1987 on Potts Avenue, and was most recently known as the Business Assistance Center at its home near the Northeast Wisconsin Technical College campus.
In addition to WTC, the hub is supported by partnerships between the Greater Green Bay Chamber; the Green Bay Wisconsin SCORE Chapter 508; the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay; and the Northeast Wisconsin Technical College Small Business Initiative & Entrepreneur Resource Center, and others.
The collaboration rebranded as The Startup Hub earlier this year after the organizations recognized an urgent need to centralize resources to harness the region’s growing entrepreneurial spirit.
“We recognize entrepreneurs are passionate and knowledgeable about their craft, skill, product or field, but hear time and time again they aren’t the experts when it comes to licensing, permitting, accounting, legalities and other facets of starting or growing their business,” Kelly Armstrong, vice president of economic development for the Greater Green Bay Chamber, said in a statement. “The Startup Hub is intended to be the starting point for all entrepreneurs and small business owners no matter what stage of business they are in.”
Local entrepreneurs are invited to tap into the Startup Hub’s various small business resources. Business owners can rent office space, receive small business mentorship and incubation services, business planning, and other training and development programming, all designed to spur economic growth in the region.
Startup Hub Manager and serial entrepreneur, Ron Franklin, says the region’s entrepreneurial upswing is largely driven by its millennial residents, something local companies — and the hub — have taken note of.
“In a positive startup economy like we have, millennials are willing to take the risk, where established workers want the stability,” he explains. “We have exciting tech companies that are starting or growing in this area. People are willing to hire young people, but they want facilities up to par — not something straight out of the eighties.”
Franklin says that’s why the new building provides all-inclusive utilities, contemporary design, and enhanced updates such as a technology room for meetings and presentations, a food market, and a “mother’s room,” to support women business owners.
"Green Bay isn’t just this football town — we’re more than beer, brats and football"
“We are more than the four walls of the building,” Franklin says. “We’re a place where people can come to start a business. For me, (the motivation) is helping other businesses thrive and seeing what comes out of it. You see their growth. Then you see them open their business. That’s a really cool thing.”
Still, Franklin says the the Startup Hub can’t exist alone, and looks forward to creating a viable startup economy with other business incubation and investment groups. In fact, entrepreneurs may be just as likely steered to other entrepreneurial resources, such as Titletown Tech, T2, Rise & Grind, and The Docking Station, the organization said.
“One of the things we have seen in other communities that are successfully creating innovation and entrepreneurship is that it’s not about self-contained islands,” Craig Dickman, managing director of Titletown Tech, an innovation development established by the Green Bay Packers and Microsoft, said in a statement. “We find the most effective include a few strong hubs. The Startup Hub … will be an anchor point in connecting our entrepreneurial resources.”
Franklin says that sort of congeniality is what makes Greater Green Bay an opportune region for its entrepreneurial class. This month, the group opened a second co-working space dubbed the “Urban Hub,” located at 240 N. Broadway, to extend its services to downtown.
“Green Bay isn’t just this football town — we’re more than beer, brats and football,” Franklin says. “It’s a thriving, entrepreneurial community. We are dedicated to the growth of the entrepreneurial environment, and we have a strategic plan in place to do that.”
“It’s not just happening in Madison or Milwaukee. Don’t count Green Bay out.”
