As the first commercial kitchen “incubator” in Michigan, The Starting Block provides licensed kitchen where its clients can produce, package, store and ship their products. It also offers the marketing and business know-how to successfully grow their businesses.

In the face of Michigan’s manufacturing job losses, Director Ron Steiner gets excited about the little incubator’potential for a positive impact on jobs. Most Starting Block clients have ties to agriculture and natural resources.“That,” Steiner asserts, “offers plenty of opportunity to build some really good Michigan businesses here that aren't’t going to leave the state.”

Current Starting Block clients include Vicki Fuller of Fremont, who owns Maple Island Pie Factory, LLC, and Lisa Dutcher of Hesperia, who owns Sassy Seasonings. Others produce or package products such as gluten free pastry mixes, imported virgin olive oil, candied nuts, cornbread stuffing, and cherry juice concentrate. Business owners, who often hold “day jobs” outside of their incubator ventures, have 24/7 access to the facility so they can produce their products at any time it suits them. Kitchen tenants rent facilities by the hour, and office tenants get high-speed internet and all utilities except long-distance phone for a $110 monthly fee.

Fuller considered running her pie business from home, but a visit to The Starting Block convinced her that licensing requirements make it easier just to use its commercial kitchen. Plus, she appreciates the business guidance that’s available.

“They told me just what to do—first step,second step,third step, fourth step—making it so much easier for me to get this endeavor started,” says Fuller.

“I love the partnership,” Dutcher adds. “Using The Starting Block has been a great experience for me.”

Getting Started & Growing
As a former director of the Oceana County Economic Development Corporation and a current regional entrepreneurship educator for MSU’s Ag Extension office, Steiner has along history of helping businesses bloom.

While working for MSU in 2003, he started the kitchen incubator in Hart and with state and federal funding, opened. The Starting Block in 2006. Keeping the doors open since has sometimes been a challenge, admits Steiner. He brought in Jim Henley and Jane Dosemagen to help him in 2005. The two have restaurant backgrounds and the same determination to make The Starting Block a major resource for the regional business and agricultural community. Dosemagen manages the orderly operations while Henley oversees sanitation, safety and process training. All three learned to operate on a shoestring budget with past business ventures and use that experience to help their clients.

“When you’re an entrepreneur,you do everything that needs to be done to make the business run,” says Dosemagen.

Not dwelling on job descriptions, the trio has installed flooring and equipment, painted walls, and scrounged for used equipment for the incubator. And, local businesses have willingly provided equipment free or at a very reasonable cost.

Steiner proudly shows a used forklift donated by Elston-Richards, Inc., of Grand Rapids, a candy-coating machine from Hart food processor Gray and Company, and desks from Dow Chemical. Other finds include equipment bought from a closed school and a $20,000 walk-in cooler acquired or $6,500 (assembly and installation, courtesy of volunteers). Such savings, Steiner says, allows current incubator grant funds to be used for rent and overhead expenses.

Donations have also helped fund educational programs. For example, Great Lakes Energy’s People Fund provided a $4,750 grant in 2007 for business classes for high school-age entrepreneurs to plant seeds for future business startups. The Starting Block also offers business and marketing classes to the general public, and Henley plans to develop training that will give kitchen and serving staff practical experience before a new restaurant opens.

Targeted, relatively short business courses and continued support from The Starting Block can launch people into their own businesses faster and more successfully than longer, more general classes offered through most colleges, claims Steiner.

“Once people realize what we’re trying to accomplish, it captures them,” Steiner reports, “and donations follow.” More federal grant dollars will become available when enough nonfederal matching funds are received.