Tom Schryver: Ithaca’s entrepreneurial concierge

ITHACA — The word “concierge” evolved from the French expression comte des cierges, which identified a servant whose job was to attend to the whims of visiting noblemen. Tom Schryver is Ithaca’s concierge par excellence, who has forsworn noblemen to attend to the region’s budding entrepreneurs. In this role, he wears many hats.

Schryver’s hats
Schryver donned his first hat in July 2012 when Cornell University designated him as an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) to mentor and advise Cornell–connected startups and aspiring entrepreneurs. In January 2014, the university created the Center for Regional Economic Advancement (CREA) and tapped Schryver to be executive director — hat number two. “CREA’s goal is to support a diverse and thriving economy in Upstate,” says Schryver, “by fostering three programs. The first is START-UP NY (SUNY Tax Free Areas to Revitalize and Transform Upstate New York), initiated to provide tax incentives to companies that commit to grow jobs in alignment with the state’s colleges and universities.

“The second program,” continues Schryver, “is the Southern Tier Startup Alliance (STSA, formerly the Southern Tier Innovation Hot Spot) formed by Cornell, Binghamton University, the Ceramics Corridor Innovation Center, and Corning [Inc.] to leverage innovation ‘hot spots’ (business incubators) in eight Southern Tier counties. The purpose is to provide programs and services to entrepreneurs starting and growing companies in the region. STSA currently has five hot spots with a sixth under construction. And the third program is a downtown Ithaca business incubator called Rev: Ithaca Startup Works, which is a facility to host events and workshops to promote entrepreneurship and support house-member startups by providing space in a co-working environment. Rev serves as the Ithaca home for an STSA hot spot. Schryver’s third hat is his role as manager of STSA.

Teaching hat
Hat number four came in January 2014 when Cornell, Ithaca College, and Tompkins Cortland Community College launched Rev with Schryver as executive director. Last August, the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell appointed the intrepid hatter to lead the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute (EII) to align academic theory, practice, and learning, and to foster the critical components of entrepreneurship and innovation. That’s hat number five, although Schryver’s role at EII will change because the Johnson and Dyson Schools along with the School of Hotel Administration are combining into a single College of Business. Schryver wears hat number six as a lecturer at Cornell, and as a member of the teaching team at eLab (Cornell’s student-business accelerator).

Schryver notes the unique synergy teaching both on-campus and fostering business incubation in the community. “As a visiting lecturer, at Cornell, along with my colleagues Ken Rother and Brad Treat, we not only teach Cornell business students but also the university’s engineering students and students at Ithaca College. In addition, we lead regional workshops, run the hardware program at Rev, hire students as marketing interns at Rev, and encourage STSA companies to hire students directly as interns. What this means is that we’ve been able to make use of opportunities for cross-pollination among students, faculties, mentors, advisers, and the community, all mixing together.”

Cornell is developing another cutting-edge program called Commercialization Fellowship. “This program will provide a six-month, intensive experience for six engineering Ph.D. candidates to explore the commercial potential of a specific technology, probably the one they are working on in pursuit of the degree,” says Schryver. “The candidates will garner practical business experience and may yield new, high-tech startups, which then have a direct path to local and regional incubation resources.”

The fellowship is fully funded and comes with a personal mentor; access to Cornell alumni, entrepreneurs and experts; site visits; and private meetings to explore commercializing a product of the candidate’s choosing.

CREA
“I spend 80 [percent] to 90 percent of my time focused on CREA, and the remainder at the Johnson School,” says Schryver. “Most of the time you’ll find me at Rev, where I help Ithaca entrepreneurs grow their businesses to their fullest potential. Our goal is simple: create jobs. We benchmark our success by the number of jobs created, the quality of the jobs, and how well we reach out to the total community. The Ithaca incubator currently offers 4,500 square feet of flexible workspace, and this summer we will add another 4,000 feet. Rev features modern workspace, Internet connectivity, mentoring from experienced entrepreneurs, a chance to collaborate with your peers, access and introductions to capital-raising advice, support from business professionals, admission to member and public events, and an assortment of equipment that includes 3D printers, CNC machines, bench- and hand-power tools, a prototyping lab, and more. Rev also houses the Southern Tier Hardware Accelerator, a pilot program for companies that make physical products. The concept is to take products from napkin to prototype. In addition, the incubator supports a program for women entrepreneurs in Tompkins County with the goal of expanding the network of women in business.”

Rev’s short-term goal is to attract new startup businesses to rent space and to use its resources. “We need to get our clients’ products and services to market as quickly and as efficiently as possible,” notes Schryver. “The long-term goal is to stimulate the area’s industry and to create jobs, which will benefit the entire community. Membership in Rev is open to anyone in the community, not just those affiliated with a sponsoring college or university. The application form only asks nine questions, such as: Have you filed your entity?, Is the business insured?, What is the business model? Applications are judged by Cornell’s EIRs. Full membership only costs $200 per-month, per-person, and a virtual membership costs $100 per company with a $10 per-person, per-day fee to access the workspace on an as-needed basis.”

As of early March, Rev had 32 active members in a variety of industries, including feed, high-tech apparel, polymer membranes, online fundraising, drones, food, and woodworking. The number of Rev members is forecast to grow this year. STSA has more than 60 companies as members of the partner incubators located in Binghamton, Ithaca, Corning, and Elmira. 

Rev is sited at 314 E. State St. on the second floor of the Carey Building. The incubator expansion to the third floor is scheduled for this summer. “The site is perfect,” exclaims Schryver. “The address is centrally located at the east entrance of the Ithaca Commons, right in the middle of the business community. I like to say that no matter where you are in Ithaca, gravity takes you to Rev. The landlord, Travis Hyde Properties, has not only refurbished our space, but also is in the process of adding four floors of apartments to the building. Frost Travis, president of Travis Hyde Properties, offered us a generous five-year lease with an option to renew, even though the market price of the space commands a higher price. I think it’s a sign of his civic commitment to the project.”

Tax benefits
CREA programs have many tax benefits to attract new companies. START-UP NY offers 10 years of tax benefits, and the Hot Spot program offers five years. START-UP also offers a New York State personal-income-tax exemption for new personnel, a benefit not offered in Hot Spot. Both programs offer exemptions on state corporate-income tax and state sales tax on purchases. START-UP requires an application and a campus to sponsor the company; the Hot Spot only requires that the company be certified as a member and meet New York State criteria of being “in the formative stage.” START-UP NY insists that the company move into a specific space designated as a “tax-free area” in the participating university’s campus plan; Hot-Spot benefits are available regardless of where the company is located, as long as the business meets the membership requirements of the Hot Spot. A company may start with a Hot Spot and later apply for START-UP status. The final determination of tax benefits is handled by the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.

Funding
STSA originally received a three-year, $750,000 award from New York State’s Regional Economic Development Council. In the third round of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s regional economic-development competition, Rev received a $1 million capital award to fund construction, furniture, fixtures, and equipment. In December 2015, under Cuomo’s Consolidated Funding Application program, Rev received another $125,000 a year for three years to support programming, deliver incubator best-practices, and be part of the multi-regional ecosystem. In the second round of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Growth Accelerator Fund competition, Rev received a $50,000 grant to fund a program supporting women entrepreneurs. In 2015, STSA was bolstered with a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Rev also has a five-year commitment from the three institutions of higher education that founded the incubator to support the annual operating budget.

Another funding source was announced by Cuomo in April 2015 to promote his Opportunity Agenda’s goal of growing clean energy in the state. Called the 76West initiative, New York is funding the concept with $20 million — $10 million for a clean-energy competition and another $10 million for business-support services to the local clean-energy market. The competition is designed to jump-start the clean-energy economy in the Southern Tier to create new jobs, open economic opportunities, and help to sustain local communities. “This is really a big deal,” stresses Schryver. “For the next four years, six startup companies each year will win large prizes, beginning with a $1 million award for first place, $500,000 for second place, and four additional awards of $250,000. Three years from now, 24 clean-energy startups will have received $10 million. STSA is NYSERDA’s (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) main regional partner to implement the competition. We’re very excited about the opportunity to create a new startup cluster here in the Southern Tier.

Entrepreneurial boom
Schryver’s concierge efforts come at a critical time. The U.S. rate of new-business creation peaked a decade ago and has been slow to bounce back from the economic collapse of 2008, even as that portion of the population (age 24-55) most likely to start a business is actually growing. Worse, the rate of business closures exceeds the rate of startups, something not seen since the 1970s. Since new businesses create all net, new jobs in the country, fewer business startups mean fewer jobs created. Research by the Kauffman Foundation suggests that “[m]illennials (ages 16-35) have the best shot of leading [new-business activity and thus] an economic recovery,” even recognizing the obstacles they face: student-loan debt, low home ownership (potential loan collateral), and an uneven job market which suggests difficulty in finding a job should a venture fail.

Despite the gloomy picture of the last decade, some see a looming entrepreneurial boom. Kauffman reports that small-business activity in 2015 rose in 49 of the 50 states and 38 of the top-40 metropolitan areas. Ownership is also more diverse with 28 percent representing African-American, Latino, Asian, or other non-white categories. Immigrants now make up 20 percent of business owners, and college graduates are the biggest category of owners with a 39 percent share. While not all startups are superstars such as Airbnb and Uber, the number of financial-technology businesses is rocking the financial-services industry, auto-tech startups are changing the industry’s business model, and even stodgy industries such as insurance are witnessing an entrepreneurial revolution that is fundamentally changing how business is conducted.

Behind the coming entrepreneurial boom is the low cost of starting a high-tech business and experimenting with different ideas. Add to this the expansion of “hot-market” entrepreneurial financing, which helps to generate radical ideas. With the help of incubators such as Rev, the quality of startups is improving, and even large, established businesses are exploring ways to encourage “intrepreneurial” activity, which involves entrepreneurial initiatives inside the corporate mantle. There is also the idea that entrepreneurship can go viral by exposing more people to the idea.

Schryver’s background positions him as the ideal entrepreneurial concierge, having worn many hats in his business career. After earning his bachelor’s degree and later his MBA from Cornell, he worked at UBS Investment Bank; spent four years as the director of finance at the Triad Foundation (a $250 million family foundation); joined Novomer as VP of finance and operations; launched his own consultancy, ACME Ventures, LLC., to provide CFO services to companies too small to retain a staff CFO; closed his consultancy to join e2e Materials as the company’s CFO; was appointed the interim CEO and chief investment officer of LaunchNY; and served as the CEO of PI Experiential Learning, all before joining Cornell as an EIR. Schryver also serves on the boards of Tompkins County Area Development; the Cornell Agriculture and Food Technology Park; and the Business Incubator Association of New York State, where he serves as vice chair.

“We’re off to a good start,” concludes Schryver. “CREA is strongly supported by Cornell, and we are well funded, which allows me to focus on helping the startup companies at Rev, to collaborate with our sister incubators at STSA, and to assist students at Cornell. We’re also spending more time on outreach to the community to make everybody aware of the startup opportunities downtown and how Ithaca is becoming a startup hub. The next step is to secure a $5 million grant from the Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council’s recent $500 million award from the state in order to create a seed fund for STSA. This would allow us to offer $50,000 to $100,000 startup investments in high-growth-potential companies in the Southern Tier.”

According to the National Business Incubator Association, 87 percent of incubator graduates stay in business, as opposed to the 50 percent to 60 percent of startups without incubator support that fail within the first five years. The data augurs well for STSA, which is home to academic and research institutions that collectively spend more than $1.5 billion annually. The region served by STSA supports 4,100 faculty teaching 51,000 undergraduates and 10,000 graduate students each year. The Southern Tier leads the state in developing high-tech manufacturing and is poised to demonstrate the best practices for bringing university research to the marketplace and, in turn, creating jobs.

Schryver wears many hats as he guides Ithaca’s startup hub, but they all sport the same moniker: “entrepreneurial concierge.” One recent recognition of his efforts comes from the Downtown Ithaca Alliance (DIA), which awarded Rev special recognition for making a demonstrable difference in the health and vitality of the community. According to Gary Ferguson, executive director of DIA, “We are particularly drawn to Rev for several reasons: the early success … in attracting clients and entrepreneurs, the success in already spinning out businesses that are staying in the community, and the ability … to reach out and engage a large number of people in the Ithaca community who might not have otherwise participated in organized entrepreneurial activities.”

Schryver is too busy to dwell on recognition. He sees the potential of Ithaca as a startup hub, and doesn’t plan to slow down his outreach to and support of Tompkins County’s entrepreneurs. Well, perhaps for a second to don another hat. As Ithaca’s entrepreneurial concierge, he is focused like a laser on positioning the community for the coming entrepreneurial boom.

Watch out Silicon Valley.