🔒With new HQ, Eastern CT Chamber set to launch innovation center, startup incubator

Since mid-July, the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut has been running an eight-week Entrepreneurship Academy at the New London Public Library.

The initial hope, said Tony Sheridan, president and CEO of the chamber, was to attract a cohort of 25 aspiring entrepreneurs to the program’s inaugural class.

Instead, the chamber eventually capped enrollment at 42.

“There’s a huge interest in starting a business,” Sheridan said. “And the big challenge for startups is having a helping hand.”

That’s something Sheridan’s chamber — with investment from the state and private sector — is hoping to provide in the coming months when it opens an innovation center, startup incubator and coworking space located in the organization’s newly-purchased office building at 92 Eugene O’Neill Drive in New London.

The center — part of the chamber’s efforts to create a vibrant startup ecosystem for its 40-town service area, including parts of Greater Hartford — will be used for entrepreneurial training, technical apprenticeships and business development.

The state Bond Commission allocated $1.3 million for the chamber to purchase and renovate the 8,300-square-foot building, which it bought in May for $1 million, city records show.

While the state has invested heavily in building industry-focused startup clusters across Connecticut — including bioscience in New Haven and fintech in Stamford — traditionally they have not been through formal partnerships with chambers of commerce. But Sheridan hopes that might be changing and he sees chambers as valuable partners in fostering entrepreneurship and innovation, particularly in the state’s urban centers.

“Chambers already have a significant base of companies [as members],” Sheridan said, noting his chamber has 1,500 members. “We can help match startups with successful existing businesses.”

Sheridan said his chamber’s Entrepreneurship Academy and planned innovation center are based on the principle of apprenticeship.

The academy program, designed to build a foundation of potential startups for the chamber’s new innovation center when it becomes operational in 2023, is run by Rosemary Otsfeld, who teaches a startup incubator course at Wesleyan University.

The program’s goal is to help would-be entrepreneurs increase the likelihood of a viable business. Data from CBInsights shows that 90% of startups fail, with 42% failing due to lack of a market need and nearly 30% running out of capital.

The chamber’s free eight-week, one-and-a-half-hour entrepreneurship sessions are designed to address those challenges. The program covers a range of issues including market research, legal business requirements, budgeting, accessing capital, and pitching ideas to investors.

The program will culminate with a community demo day event in September. It includes speakers and resources to support aspiring entrepreneurs, including Connecticut Innovations, the state’s venture capital arm, Connecticut Women’s Business Development Council, Small Business Development Center and SCORE.

“It’s a great way for participants to get feedback on their business plan,” Sheridan said.

Germinating business ideas

Larry McHugh, president of the Middletown-based Middlesex Chamber of Commerce, said as businesses change, chambers need to evolve, too.

In 2018, his chamber converted its Main Street office’s second floor to incubator space with the goal of fostering more startup creation and incentivizing more Wesleyan students to stay in Connecticut.

“We have a lot of young people with great [business] ideas and they needed a place to work and they needed mentors,” McHugh said.

The Mews+, an organization created under the chamber banner to grow startups, has been funded by CTNext, the private sector and city of Middletown. However, it was severely impacted by COVID in 2020 and forced to transition to more virtual workshops and networking opportunities.

For the past two years, Rebecca Mead has run Mews+. She said chamber-based incubators are great opportunities for people to discover if their business concept has potential.

“We work with them on every aspect of their business plan and make sure they’re doing their market research and building their [business] support systems if they do launch their business,” Mead said.

She said the Mews+ programming has drawn a demographically diverse group with business ideas across a wide array of industries, including home good, beauty products, software and a labeling company for home-based food producers. One participant, Mead said, has already expanded her business to include a second location.

It’s an example of startup growth that Sheridan wants to replicate across eastern Connecticut. In particular, he wants to develop businesses and skills development to support southeastern Connecticut’s nascent offshore wind industry, as well as Groton-based Electric Boat.

Once his chamber’s Innovation Center is operating, Sheridan would like to see at least six businesses a year launch from its incubator program, he said. All program graduates will be given a free membership for one year and Sheridan is looking to expand its service offerings to include some in-house graphic design support for startups as well as legal services to help entrepreneurs.

“The idea is to make sure our startups succeed in their venture,” Sheridan said. “And our chamber can be a vehicle to help get them where they need to be.”