The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus has taken over an entrepreneurship program initially brought to the area two years ago by a Massachusetts-headquartered nonprofit group.
EforAll opened a Buffalo office in May 2021, and initially ran the program, but the medical campus led the effort to break it away from its national arm earlier this year.
The medical campus helped bring EforAll to the market but after working with the group for a year-and-a-half, decided it made more sense to launch the next phase in-house to help make the program more Western New York-centered.
That, officials believed, would make it more appealing to potential entrepreneurs, as well as program investors.
The locally run venture, called Innovation Community Success, is run by the same person who headed EforAll – Juweria Dahir, who now is the medical campus’ director of innovation and entrepreneurship.
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Innovation and Entrepreneurship director Juweria Dahir speaks during the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus’ entrepreneurship program IC Success graduation ceremony on May 4, 2023.
The program hasn’t changed since the transition, but having more of a local presence has served to entice investors from the area who were initially skeptical of EforAll’s future in Buffalo. Now they know the program isn’t going anywhere, Dahir said.
M&T Bank committed $300,000 to support the program in April 2022, but there were some investors that didn’t buy in initially, Dahir said.
IC Success is offered at no cost to entrepreneurs thanks in large part to funding from donors. And the expanding entrepreneurial and startup space has created more competition for these funding dollars.
The entrepreneurship program just graduated its third cohort earlier this month – the first under the umbrella of the medical campus.
“Everything we did with EforAll just really made us better,” Dahir said. “But I saw the value in keeping things in-house. People have this Buffalo pride, so to say this is a local organization, not a new company that came in, I think people really appreciate that.”
IC Success is intended to provide support to aspiring entrepreneurs from all backgrounds and underrepresented communities looking to start or grow a business that will ensure the continuing economic resurgence of Western New York.
A business accelerator program and pitch contest are both offered by the medical campus. The accelerator program is a yearlong entrepreneurship course that includes business classes, mentorship and funding opportunities. The pitch contests are opportunities for entrepreneurs to present their business ideas to a panel of judges and win up to $1,000 and get feedback on their idea.
“I’m excited that the work is still going on,” Dahir said. “I think it’s inspiring. It benefits and improves the community by giving people the tools to start a business in their own communities.”
Fifteen Buffalo entrepreneurs showcased their companies over three nights in April with up to $11,000 in funding on the line as part of the accelerator program. Each gave a 10-minute presentation about their business idea and services bring offered, and then answered questions from the audience and a panel of judges at the Innovation Center on Ellicott Street in Buffalo.
The latest cohort of the business accelerator began with classes where participants learned from experts in the community teaching the nuts and bolts of starting and running a business and ways to market and accelerate their ideas. The entrepreneurs are taught everything from insurance and legal matters to customer segmentation.
Mentorship is a key component of the program. There are 45 mentors per cohort, and they offer advice, solutions and connections to the entrepreneurs.
Eric Flynn of Living Icons, which creates figurines for podcasters and influencers to sell to their audiences, said he was not connected at all to the entrepreneurial community, so it was key to get intertwined in that through the program.
“These are people that have been in my same shoes and grown their business, so it’s been great to connect with those people,” said Flynn of East Amherst, who also makes Bills fans figurines under the brand name Tailgate Mafia. “To get the foundational pieces that you need to have a successful business, it gave us the tools we needed to get us a solid structure for our business so we can move forward.”
He and his business partner won $3,000 in seed money from the contest in April and will use it to build out a website to increase their clientele and process orders. The program already helped them connect with people they’d be selling to, helping validate their idea.
“We now have a clear picture of what the future looks like for us,” Flynn said. “We feel confident in our business structure.”
The program has supported about 200 local businesses so far since launching as EforAll two years ago. The first cohort finished in winter 2021-22 and the next one finished in the summer of 2022. The application deadline for the fourth cohort is June 9, with classes starting in September.
“It’s not just about creating equal opportunities; it’s about unlocking the specific potential of every dreamer and then giving them the tools to turn that vision into reality,” Dahir said. “I feel as an organization we’re empowering individuals regardless of their background and circumstances.”
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Michael J. Petro is a business reporter for The Buffalo News. The Buffalo State College graduate is a former sports writer who previously served as the editor of both The Sun and Buffalo Law Journal.
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