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Business Garden offers small firms room to grow
8/14/2006
By Myron Kukla
The Grand Rapids Press
ZEELAND - Katy Rent is glad when clients stop using her services.
"We call it 'graduation' when a start-up company gets to the point where they need to move out to their own space to expand the business," said Rent, marketing manager for the Lakeshore Advantage and its business incubator the Business Garden.
The Business Garden, like the name implies, offers very small companies functional business space to take root and grow.
"The Business Garden provides companies with desk space, meeting rooms and a professional environment with business mentors who can advise and even challenge them on every aspect of their business," Rent said.
The Business Garden, 201 W. Washington Ave. in the newly remodeled Colonial Clock Building, lets companies get up and running without a lot of hassle.
"It was a great place for us. We were able to sit down the first day and start making sales calls," said Jeff Moseler, chief operating officer for B&G Solutions, a two-man company that set up shop at the Garden in August 2005 and graduated to their own office in Holland Township this spring. "We didn't have to spend weeks setting a phone system, Internet or fax machines."
B&G specializes in the sale of lubricants for plastic injection mold businesses and filtration products for the industry. Increased demand for product and inventory prompted the company to move to a bigger space.
"I don't think we would be where we are today or developed so quickly without the help we received from Lakeshore Advantage," Moseler said.
Besides low-cost office space -- about $300 a month -- the Business Garden provides daily counseling for start-ups, quarterly reviews of company plans with Business Garden advisors and exposure to investors who might take a chance on start-up companies.
"They were instrumental in helping us get up and running as a business and showing us how to find investors," said Garrick Pohl, president of Crayon Interface, whose company recently received $1 million in venture capital to help launch its CellSTART, a remote car starter that uses cell phone technology.
"They put us in contact with investors in West Michigan, helped us refine our financial presentations," said Pohl, whose company in a year has grown from two to five employees and in July moved to offices in downtown Holland.
"I'd tell anyone thinking of starting a business to look at making the Business Garden their first office because of the support and help you get there," he said.
Started in 2003, the Lakeshore Advantage is a nonprofit economic development corporation that works with local governments to attract and keep businesses in the area.
"The Business Garden is designed to help develop local entrepreneurship to create strong companies for the future," said Randy Thelen, Lakeshore Advantage president.
"If we can help start a company on its way to success, they are more likely to have strong ties to the area and want to stay here as they get bigger," said Thelen, pointing to local billion-dollar companies Gentex, Herman Miller and Haworth
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