Posting Disruption

The Importance of a Mentor

Being an Entrepreneur you have your own vision of how you want to build out your venture. You tend to want to do things your own and put on blinders to what everyone on the outside has to say. While this may have many benefits, there are many negatives that come with this. A big mistake of having blinders on when your climbing the entrepreneurship mountain are mistakes that people have faced before you. One of the biggest assets to being an entrepreneur is learning and avoiding the mistakes that people have made before you. This is where having a mentor is very important.

A mentor is a support system to a young and new entrepreneur. It is like an advisor for a college student. This advisor has been through college, has made mistakes, and is here to make your experience better and keep you on track during your collegiate journey. A mentor will allow you to learn things that you can’t learn on the internet, a book or classroom. Their real world experience is invaluable to an entrepreneur. Another plus to having a mentor is the networking opportunities you’ll gain from them. An ideal mentor has been through things you’ll eventually face and they want to make your journey better/easier than theirs. They’ll introduce you to doors you’ll never reach without them. Lastly, research supports that having a mentor allows you to have a higher chance to succeed. Sheila Eugenio from Entrepreneur.com wrote  “In a 2013 executive coaching survey, 80 percent of CEOs said they received some form of mentorship. In another research by Sage, 93 percent of startups admit that mentorship is instrumental to success.” This shows that having a mentor brings many positives and can only help your chances to success.

Last week I had the honor of being able to interview Chris Pacetti of Omniboom. Chris has strong information technology professional skilled in Requirements Analysis, Enterprise Software, E-commerce, Enterprise Architecture, and Agile Methodologies. He serves as the Founder & CEO of Ominboom. Also, Chris was recognized by Comspark as a Rising Tech Star.

Question: What is your role with omniboom ?
My title is CEO but my role is pretty broad. My biggest role is maintaining a culture where everybody loves what their doing, they work together, and they see the vision. But I also handle Sales/Marketing as well as some QA.

Question: What made you guys join the mil?
I friend of mine told me about it so my partner, Richie Brees, and I checked it out. Richie lives close by so it was a match made in heaven.

Question: What is omniboom ?
Omniboom is an integrations company. As more and more solutions become cloud-based, companies need the ability to connect them to their on-premise solutions. That’s where we come in. We have a managed services group that works as consultants in assisting companies on integrating their systems. And we have developed an Integration Platform as-a-Service called OmniPlexus that companies can subscribe to and have the ability to create their own integrations without any technical expertise.

Question: What were your biggest obstacles with starting onmiboom?
Finding the right people that fit into your culture is probably the biggest. Next, I would say trying to manage the resources with the amount of work that has to be done.

Question : What mistakes (if any) did you make that you would change in your quest of omniboom?
None, so far, that come to mind. Everything has been a blessing.

Question: What goals do you have for omniboom for the rest of the year and the beginning of 2019?
Our goals for this year are to really get OmniPlexus in a state to compete with the Dell’s and the IBM’s of the world. That will carry on into 2019 as well.

Different ways to fund your new startup venture –

One of the most important things for new startup ventures is raising money to fund your startup venture and carry out your idea/concept. Many people never know where to start when it comes to funding a new startup company and struggle in their early stages because of lack of capital. While raising money isn’t as easy as 2+2, there are many different avenues that a founder/ceo can raise some capital. Here are a few

• Join an Accelerator or Incubator

1. 1. 1. An accelerator is a short term program that is usually around 6 months in length and is usually a group of other startups in each cohort. Accelerators provide startups with seed funding, cowork space, connections, mentors. They usually provide seed funding in return for an equity stake in your new venture. An incubator is very similar but it provides support from a very early stage. They provide coaching and many similar things that accelerators offer.

• Crowdfunding

1. 1. 1. Crowdfunding is become a popular way to raise capital for new startups. Crowdfunding are pledges made by people who want to support your venture and believe that it will have some impact and ROI. Popular crowdfunding sites are Wonderfund and Kickstarter.

• Grants

1. 1. 1. The government allocates money and provides grants for a lot of small businesses in different industries. Most require an application and require you to explain how the money will be used.

• Family/Self funding

1. 1. One of the most common things people do with getting their new startup off the ground is self funding. They provide the least amount of money necessary to build their company and carry out their vision. They also pitch their ideas to family members and raise capital that way.

The “pivot”, according to Merriam-Webster is the “action of turning around a point”. The legacy cities of Ohio and other Midwest cities need to be adept at making these “pivots” for the sake of their long-term survival. Hamilton is pivoting with significant downtown revitalization strategies that will reclaim our urban core. “The Mill” as it is affectionately known throughout Southwest Ohio, is Hamilton’s small business incubator and is just one piece of the many exciting initiatives taking place in this rustbelt community. Our City’s Economic Development Department has been recognized on several fronts and the pieces are in place to carry the momentum forward. This is all after being dealt several crippling blows in the early 2010’s that included the shuddering of two paper mills, the loss of a major downtown employer, and the after effects of the Great Recession. This is all happening in a legacy city that was built on manufacturing – automotive, beverage, paper, and steel.

In July of 2014 the new and improved Hamilton Mill was unveiled. A new era of business incubation is taking place at The Hamilton Mill. We are Southwestern Ohio’s only small business incubator dedicated to green, clean, water, digital and advanced manufacturing technologies. We are leveraging the extremely progressive City of Hamilton utilities department that delivers gas, water, electric, waste treatment, and broadband services to our residents and businesses. The municipally provided utilities will be 75%-80% renewable energy when the Meldahl Hydroelectric project comes on-line in 2015. Conveniently located between Cincinnati and Dayton in the city of Hamilton, Ohio. This revolutionary change is taking place now.

The Kauffman Foundation, one of the leading organizations promoting entrepreneurship and small business, has determined that younger firms are the job creators, and The Mill will be an important part of that going forward. We have succeeded in developing significant collaborations with organizations that share our passion for transforming the region’s innovation landscape. It is a formula that has proven itself countless times, and it is a valued principal that has come to define us, as well as the advancement of the region’s startup community.

We are not new to the game, just more engaged with the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem and the needs of Southwest Ohio. The incubator has served Butler County and Southwest Ohio since 2003 and will continue to provide a home to high growth startups that are building things, specifically around manufacturing, clean technology, and digital applications. Below are some key metrics and awards that we have been recognized for since we began our relaunch initiative one year ago.

As you can see, our mindset at The Mill is all about innovation and making the swift, key pivots that are required from organizations to be successful. The Mill, in and of itself, is a startup – just like the startups that we are mentoring and recruiting to be part of our journey.

About The Hamilton Mill

The Hamilton Mill is based in Hamilton, Ohio and is the leading business incubator in Butler County and provides support for young companies and entrepreneurs focused on clean technology, advanced manufacturing and thought-leading technology.  The Hamilton Mill includes partnerships with The City of Hamilton, Hamilton Utilities, SCORE, Miami University, Liferay Inc., Butler Tech, Cintrifuse, PowerIT, The Greater Cincinnati Venture Association, SBDC, CincyTech, Confluence WTIC, Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance, Green Umbrella and The Greater Hamilton Chamber of Commerce. 

Check us out at www.hamiltonmill.org