Where Small Business Blossoms

The setup "made it so much easier to get started. You walk in, and everything is ready to go on the first day," said Craig Stewart, president of the National Museum of Americans in Wartime, a new nonprofit group that plans to open a museum near Manassas in 2012. "Businesses also don't make light of the address. To say my office is on the campus is nice because it's a very prestigious university."

Program participants get not only the infrastructure needed to run a business; they get a professional support staff, too. Program officials provide counseling and guidance, meeting with entrepreneurs regularly to discuss goals, business plans and financing.

"This is a perfect fit for my business," said DiModica, who runs APT Impact, an audio marketing company. "Most of my employees are contracted, so I don't need a big footprint for this business. The other real value is you have all these resources at the center and university to help your business grow."

DiModica was one of the first to join the program two years ago. The now chairman-elect of the Prince William Regional Chamber of Commerce said he came across the program while looking for ways to help local businesses thrive.

"I was on a business development and growth task force along with Miles [Friedman], and we were talking about creating an incubator program, until we found this," he said. "We are strong advocates of this and believe it can do a lot for Prince William County."

Friedman said that for him, one of the biggest benefits of the program was having help completing all the minute tasks of operating a business.

He said participants can take part in the numerous other initiatives at the center, which include mentoring partnerships and programs on government contracting and international business development.

"Starting a new business, there are a million details you have to deal with, like insurance, Internet, filing cabinets, tax forms, bookkeeping," Friedman said. "People here helped with all those nagging details, so I could focus my time on my job."

The other big benefit, Friedman said, is having people with different skills working under one roof to share ideas and help each other out.

"My dogs loved to look at my proposals when I was working at home, but they weren't very much help," Friedman said. "Here you get people with a lot of complementary skills and who I can bounce stuff off of."

The program is meant to have a two-year graduation rate, but participants can sign on for the length of time they want. Eighty-four percent of the companies that participate in the four incubator programs meet or exceed their company goals within the first two years, she said.

Segerson said the Prince William center has an annual operating budget of roughly $120,000. He said officials can keep the price of the program fairly low, thanks to grant funding and the university, which donated the space.

"We are a state agency of the commonwealth, so we are not in profit mode," he said. "Our interest is to give back to the community and provide the best level of service that we can."

The concept of a business incubator is not new but has taken off in the past decade or so, said Linda Knopp, director of news and information for the National Business Incubation Association.

In the 1980s, there were about a dozen incubation programs across the country. Now, she said, there are about 1,100.

"This helps us grow the existing business base, especially the home business type," said Manassas Economic Development Director Debi Sandlin, adding that there are "several hundred" home-based companies in Manassas. "We are lucky Mason is such a forward-thinking university. It would be difficult to get a developer to provide the space needed for the program because it is a very high-risk investment."

Segerson said there are 105 companies in the university's four incubator programs. The Prince William facility will expand in the future, he said, and a new incubator in the county that would serve the life sciences industry has been discussed.

"This program is a win-win-win for the clients, the university and the community," DiModica said. "And this is only the beginning. The Mason Enterprise Center will continue to grow."