Business Incubator Series: Jerry Creighton, Enterprise Development Center, New Jersey Institute of Technology – Newark (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How many inquiries do you receive a month?

Jerry: I get two or three a week.

Irina: Out of those, how many do you usually accept?

Jerry: That’s a very good question. It’s a cyclical thing. Typically, 50% of them are people who will say, “I like the idea. I’ll be back in six months, as soon as I get funding.” Some people say, “We’re ready right now.” I would say that 60% of all companies I talk to come in at some point, either immediately or sometime over the year.

Irina: So, some of them say they’ll be back after they get funding.

Jerry: They have to be able to pay the rent. Most of the companies are started through founder, friends, and family financing. That’s the first tranche of money that comes through. From that they go on to SBIRs [the government program Small Business Innovation Research] or grants and into other ways of getting money.

The founders seldom take a salary or anything. Their payday is at exit. So, they have to get some money together to start the business. That usually requires looking into those sources. Some companies have boards, and the boards have to approve it.

Irina: How long does it take for a company to get started in the incubation program once it’s been accepted?

Jerry: A week.

Irina: Do you conduct any due diligence?

Jerry: Yes. Part of the process is we do some due diligence on the principals, primarily.

Irina: What is the next step after a company has been accepted?

Jerry: Their next step is start to implement their milestone plan. They move into the physical location, get their offices set up, the logistical things you have to do such as hooking up the phones and those kinds of things. Then they start executing their plan. They can use their own services, if they want. They don’t have to use mine.

Irina: What tools do you use to accomplish your mission, besides the university?

Jerry: That’s a very good question. Obviously, there are too many companies for me here to work with at the same time. I have what I call entrepreneurs-in-residence.

Entrepreneurs-in-residence are specialists in a variety of areas. When I talked about the get-ready-for-funding program, writing a business plan, and coaching, those are the tasks that the entrepreneurs-in-residence help me out with.

They’re independent contractors of various kinds. They’re sometimes volunteers. I also have a program called P2B (People to Business). It’s a volunteer program. I have a lot of people who call me all the time and say, “I’ve just retired,” or “I’ve been downsized. I’d really like to learn more about and get involved in some of the latest technologies and small businesses.” I said, “Fine.” So, I set up a volunteer program. These people are in all different disciplines. They could be CFOs, CTOs, CEOs, whatever. I match them with the companies.

I go to the companies and say, “You have some vacancies on your staff or board. These people will work for nothing.” That’s what they do. They come in as board advisors. They can work a situation beyond that, clearly. They can become investors in the company. They could become full-time employees. They can continue [offering] consulting services. Initially, the introduction phase from me is, in fact, a free advisory service as a board advisor.

I set this up. I started this program in 2009. I ran a couple of meet-and-greet sessions. I have more than 50 companies that have participated in this program, which is about half of everybody here. Some companies have brought in three or four different people for different disciplines.

It’s a program that attracted a lot attention. It was picked up by the newspapers, for example the Newark Star-Ledger, and the Labor Relations Board loved it. They said, “Cool. This is great. You’re creating jobs. We love this kind of program.” It’s been written up in magazines like New Jersey Business, [which] is one of the magazines in this state. They’ve featured an article about the program as a best practice that should be followed.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Business Incubator Series: Jerry Creighton, Enterprise Development Center, New Jersey Institute of Technology – Newark
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