The Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship in Greensboro has been supporting, enabling, and encouraging small businesses for 25 years. It remains the largest small-business incubator in North Carolina. The News & Record reported June 24, 2012 that it has nurtured 367 startups since its founding in 1987. It is moving into a new home in South Elm Street, after beginning in an old First Union Bank building and later moving into the Revolution Mill Studios in 1991.
Graduates of the center mention one key advantage of being there – support. Slightly more than 80 percent of the startups have graduated from the center. Sam Funchess, Director of the center says nurturing a business is like raising a child in that there are so many ways and so many variables. The center focuses on three main areas: Emotional Support, Strategic Support and Tactical Support.
Jim Arnold’s APEX Analytix now an international company is one of the largest companies to come out of the center. He says “It was an excellent environment in which to grow. It was a good, energetic environment with a sense of energy and camaraderie.”
Robin Mack Davis, owner of Mack and Mack clothing, another graduate located in down town Greensboro says when starting “Everyone in the center was more or less new, starting a business, everyone needing help. We supported each other. There was a lot of that there.” Now 17 years in business, Mack and Mack has wholesale, retail and Internet sales and just opened another retail shop in Friendly Center.
A strength of the Nussbaum Center is its partnership with the N. C. Entrepreneurship Center at UNCG. Incubators are key to starting and nurturing business and creating jobs. A 2008 study by economist Don Jud estimated the total economic impact of the Nussbaum Center on Guilford County’s economy at $124.4 million in 2005 and $161.8 million in 2006.
This information was compiled based on the 6/24/12 N&R article by Susan Ladd 336-373-7006 susan.ladd@news-record