“… founded on the philosophy that if your start up is consumer focused, you must be brand focused”

Interview by Mike Sullivan of Sully’s Blog

The Brandery is a nonprofit, start up company accelerator located in Cincinnati, Ohio.  It’s focus is to take entrepreneur’s ideas and help turn them into successful, brand-driven start ups.  They package funding, mentoring and partnerships around local entrepreneurs to help grow consumer marketing businesses.  The Brandery will be selecting 5 companies in 2010 that will each receive $20,000 in seed funding, three months of mentorship, and the opportunity to pitch angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the program.  Deadline for the first submission is August 11.  The company is founded on the philosophy that if your start up is consumer focused, you must be brand focused.

Dave Knox is co-founder of The Brandery and a Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble.  His career has been focused in digital marketing, Branded Entertainment, youth marketing, and shopper marketing. He is a strategic marketer and brand builder with a proven ability to embrace change in order to guide brands through the increasingly fractured media landscape. With a passion for winning with an energetic and driven personality, he also has the proven ability to build, lead and inspire a high-performance team with an impossible is nothing mentality. He is highly driven to identify emerging trends in the digital space and to lead innovation.

J.B. Kropp is also a co-founder of The Brandery and serves as Vice President of Channel Partnerships for Vitrue, Inc.  He is a leader in interactive marketing and consumer-generated media.  J.B. Kropp has nearly 15 years of product, operations and strategic-leadership experience.  Kropp was also an executive with ShareThis, the company known for the social-sharing tool that now reaches more than 400 million users across 130,000 sites.  Kropp was a co-founder of one of the first online video sharing communities, Sharkle.com, helped launch Web Visible (formally SME Global Solutions), and most recently, co-founded the first consumer-generated recipe sites, Cucina.com.

Bryan Radtke is the third co-founder of The Brandery.  He is an eight year veteran of Proctor and Gamble.  Currently, he is the Brand Manager of Household Care Scale.  With six years of web design and development experience, Bryan recently founded Uncorked Cincinnati, a wine blog for Cincinnati wine enthusiasts.  He also serves as a guest marketing lecturer at Northern Kentucky University and is  a member of the Cincinnati Consumer Marketing Center.  Bryan has also spent time as an on-air news anchor for WNKU, a local NPR affiliate station.

MO:
The idea of a nonprofit, start up company accelerator is intriguing.  Where did the concept originate and how did the founders come together to make this happen?

Dave:
In my job at P&G, I work with quite a few entrepreneurs and digital start-ups.  I met JB when he was an executive at Cincinnati-based Share This.  Bryan and I have known each other for years through P&G and are always talking about new business ideas.  But most importantly, the three of us all share a potential for Cincinnati.  We had watched the amazing success that David Cohen had with TechStars in Boulder and Sam Decker had with Capital Factory in Austin.  It seemed like the very thing that Cincinnati needed to add a boost to our start-up scene. We also thought there was an unique spin that we could put on a start up accelerator that was focused on what Cincinnati does best…building brands.  We felt it would be something that could set us apart from the more tech-centered start up accelerators, while also leveraging the best talent in our region.

Bryan was actually the one who came up with the name of The Brandery when we were all talking about the idea over coffee.  It seemed like a great play off of Cincinnati’s brewery heritage and had the ring of a place where brands are created.

MO:
The Brandery is an exciting venture and must be shaking up the excitement in the Cincinnati entrepreneurial community as well.  What type of reaction have you had from businesses?  How many applications have you received to date?  Is it limited to those in Cincinnati?

Dave:
We have amazing support from the Cincinnati entrepreneurial community when it comes to launching The Brandery. At the top of the list has been CincyTech, a public-private partnership whose mission is to invest in high-growth start up technology companies in Southwest Ohio. Through their grant money, we will be directly funding the 5 companies for this first class.  The same support has been true across the board from the investment community (groups such as Blue Chip Venture Company and Queen City Angels), marketing community (we have 5 partnering advertising agencies) and the start up community.

We have also made a focused effort to be collaborative vs competitive.  For instance, The Brandery is going to be a key building block of the Consumer Marketing work of Agenda 360, our regional economic development plant.

Applicants are off to a great start.  In the first two weeks, we’ve received applications from 7 states, including as far away as Texas, California and Oregon.  Probably only half the applications have come from people currently residing in the Greater Cincinnati area.

MO:
What types of companies or ideas are you looking for from applicants.  How will some one know if they qualify to apply?

Dave:
We are looking for companies that are technology enabled and focused on Consumer Internet, Media and Products.  We are not the right place for someone focused on biotech or healthcare.  Likewise, we are looking for companies that have the potential to be ventured funded so we’re not ideal for a consultant or agency idea either.  If you think your idea or business would qualify, you should apply.

MO:
Can you talk through the selection process and what steps will follow to ultimately the company branding is established?

Dave:
For the selection process, we will have a core group of folks that will be making the ultimate decision.  But we’ll be tapping into our entire network including our mentors and partners to see which ideas really spark to them.  We will be notifying the companies selected by August 16 and the program will start two weeks later on August 30.  That will start the 12 week countdown to our final Demo Day on November 19th in Cincinnati where the 5 companies will pitch to a collection of investors, VC’s and strategic partners. During the course of the 12 weeks, the companies will be exposed to a ton of different things ranging from meeting with mentors, listening to stories from leading entrepreneurs and VC’s to sitting down with their agency partner to work on their brand identity.  There wont be a dull moment for sure.

MO:
You seem to have quickly established some strong sponsors, such as CincyTech, The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./US Bank Foundation, and others.  You also have a list of great partners and venture investment partners.  How were you able to secure these relationships and sell your idea in such a way that gained you this overwhelming support?

Dave:
The Brandery is really built on the strength of many of our personal relationships.  Many of the mentors, venture partners and agencies are people that we have worked with for years.  Once we started telling the story of what we hoped to do, people loved the idea and wanted to get involved.  The thing that was personally most excited was seeing Cincinnati’s “extended family” want to be involved.  In the marketing industry, there are tons of folks who have been coming to Cincinnati for years to meet with P&G, Kroger, Macy’s or any of the other major companies who call Cincinnati home.  Those folks were some of the ones most willing to step and really help with the program.

MO:
What is the long term vision for the companies you assist?  What will your involvement be with those companies down the road?

Dave:
We are hoping to be long term partners for the companies that go through The Brandery.  Our hope is that they will always see us as a trusted founding partner they can turn to when they need help, advice or anything else.  We wont have any set / dictated involvement with the companies other than lending a helping hand whenever they need it.  My hope for each company is that they will go on to create successful businesses (with successful exits) and hopefully one day return as mentors to the program that helped them get started.

MO:
As entrepreneurs yourselves, what are some of the challenges you have faced in putting The Brandery together.

Dave:
Like many entrepreneurs, I think our biggest challenge to date has been fundraising, especially since we are set-up as a non-profit.  We started talking with people in February and it wasn’t until June that we had the commitments financially in order to move forward.  As a non-profit, we weren’t tapping into the typical LP’s or investors that are use to the start-up space.  Luckily we found some great folks in CincyTech and the Haile Foundation that really shared our vision for economic development.

MO:
Only a limited number of companies will be selected.  What advice do you have for those that apply but are not chosen and may have good products or services in the ‘idea’ stage.  Are there resources that they can access to help them forge the path ahead of them?

Dave:
We are trying to set up The Brandery as a program that will be a resource year round and for many years to come.  With that, we want to help any companies that apply for the program but aren’t selected.  In some cases, their idea might not be a “venture” idea but one that is more a typical small business.  In those situations, we are going to help the entrepreneur however we can, including connecting them with the right folks.  On the other hand, we fully expect to find a few companies that are just a little too early.  For those, we are planning to work with them throughout the year, hopefully getting them to a point that they can be involved with the 2011 class of The Brandery.