When the nation’s Great Recession swept Detroit architects Saundra Little and Damon Thomas from their jobs, the two former college classmates launched an all-out hunt for new employment. Ultimately, they decided to start a company of their own from the relatively informal partnership they had for entering design contests.
“It was either sink or swim,” Little recalls, reflecting on the cold November day in 2008 when she and Thomas learned their seemingly secure jobs were history and they were suddenly among the growing ranks of college-trained professionals swelling the nation’s unemployment lines.
Soon Little, who has a master’s degree in architecture, and Thomas, who has a bachelor’s degree in the same field, were attending an informational event hosted by TechTown, a business incubator started in 2004 by Wayne State University in partnership with the General Motors Corp. and Henry Ford Health System.
In listening to the speakers at TechTown’s “Thrive” business acceleration program for aspiring entrepreneurs, it didn’t take long for Little and Thomas to realize that, while they were sharp architects, they knew very little about running a business.
“We needed help,” Little recalls of their decision to take TechTown up on its offer to help people learn how to set up and run a business. “They gave us a business culture,” says Little, noting the assistance has ranged from helping their three-partner firm get its professional liability insurance arranged to establishing an advisory board they can bounce ideas off.
“It (TechTown) has given us good steppingstones when we needed them,” says Little, chief operating officer of Centric Design Studio. It is one of more than 200 startup Detroit businesses rooted in TechTown.
Anchored by Wayne State, TechTown is one of several hundred business incubators around the world. It is relatively new when compared with those dating to the 1980s, such as the business incubators at Louisiana State University, Ohio University, Rensselaer Polytechnic and Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.
