Nonprofit plans an incubator to help green startups

You know what's harder than starting a small business? Starting a green small business.

Try finding financing when the premise of what you are all about - being green, or sustainable - isn't entirely understood by banks or investors, and there's no long track record on which to base success projections.

Add to that the ordinary technical challenges of any start-up: Developing a business plan. Getting the word out about products and services. Surviving.

Good news: Help is on the way. It's not a record-setting cash gift from a deep-pocketed philanthropist like Raymond G. Perelman. But it is assistance for local entrepreneurs who, on their path to financial success, are also willing to dedicate their business to doing good by environmental and social standards - otherwise known as the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit.

The Greenhouse Business Incubator would be the region's first specifically designed to cultivate environmental and social entrepreneurs, said its organizers, a group of professionals passionate about the sustainability movement and eager to help foster the growth of more like-minded businesses in the Philadelphia area.

To qualify for inclusion, businesses do not have to be from this region, "but they have to be willing to locate here for the incubator," said Shari Shapiro, a lawyer at Cozen O'Connor, where she specializes in green-building and renewable-energy issues, and cochairwoman of the board of Green Village Philadelphia, the nonprofit organization behind the incubator project.

Green Village, which consists of one paid staffer and a seven-member board of directors, is trying to raise $100,000 from foundations, the local corporate community, and essentially anyone willing to give.

The goal is to have the incubator ready to accept its first class of five companies in September. Once open, it is expected to be self-sustaining.

The physical space will be 2,000 square feet of prime city office space, the lease for which is soon to be signed, Shapiro said, declining to provide location specifics.

There, Internet, phone, copier, and conference facilities will be available for a fee under a month-to-month lease arrangement that has not yet been determined, said Green Village's executive director, Zoe Selzer.

In addition, professional support, such as legal, marketing, and accounting consultations, will be available, some for free.

"We don't want the stumbling blocks for these great ideas to be business, administrative, and legal issues," said Joe Guagliardo, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property and technology at Pepper Hamilton L.L.P. and head of Green Village's incubator committee.

Efforts also will focus on getting incubator companies in touch with potential investors.

As a way of developing a "pipeline" of incubator candidates, Green Village is offering a three-month Seed Starter program for $350 that will provide green entrepreneurs with dedicated mentors and industry professionals to help them transform ideas into actual companies, said Lindsay Gilmour, a local chef who heads the Green Village board with Shapiro.

The Seed Starter program is now open for business and accepting applications from companies in the early-concept stage.

Green Village has scheduled a fund-raiser for June 2, starting at 5:30 p.m., at Crane Arts Old School Studios, 1417 N. Second St., Philadelphia, where it expects to announce the incubator's location and provide more details about the criteria for qualifying.

Among those planning to be there are Elissa Meyers, 23, and Mira Adornetto, 32, graduates of the University of the Arts who, in their spare time, are trying to get a business off the ground that specializes in alternative dye service - from growing indigo, madder root, and marigolds and making the dyes, to actually dying fabric.

BLUEREDYELLOW is currently "making sales here and there, but we definitely need assistance on how do we make this a business where we can quit our day jobs," Meyers said Friday.

Find application instructions for the Greenhouse Business Incubator and the Seed Starter program here. Contact Green Village Philadelphia executive director Zoe Selzer at zoe@greenvillagephiladelphia.org.EndText