Money Magazine has named Charlottesville one of the top 50 places to start a small business. Additionally, Charlottesville was ranked 19th among small cities in the country. It was the only Virginia locality on the list. Much of the success of small ventures is due, according to Money, to UVA’s Darden School of Business, to which Charles Seilheimer and his business partner Adam Healey say, word up.
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Seilheimer and Healey began Hotelicopter as students in the MBA program at Darden, where they wrote a business plan for a class and turned it into a long-term project. Hotelicopter is now a user-friendly hotel search engine that employs 10 people.
“One of the great things about entrepreneurship at Darden in particular, but also in all of UVA’s schools, is that there is this fantastic support network, from both students and faculty,” says Seilheimer, now president and CFO of Hotelicopter.
While at Darden, Hotelicopter became one of the few student-led ventures to qualify for the Batten Institute Incubator. The incubator is designed to support promising small ventures and it also teaches the trials and tribulations of getting a new business off the ground.
“We view the incubator in part as an educational opportunity for our students and for some cases,” says Michael Lenox, associate dean and executive director of the Batten Institute. While in the incubator, students received grant money last year totaling about $150,000 from the Batten Endowment through the Entrepreneurship Programs.
But just how good of a place is Charlottesville once you are out of school?
According to a survey done a few years ago, 40 percent of companies that were born at Darden were still operating. “Having 40 percent of companies still active several years out, it’s a pretty good success rate,” says Philippe Sommer, director of entrepreneurship programs.
The relationship between Darden and the local network of investors is strong and growing.
“We have a world-class university, we have a lot of wealth in the area, wealth from the funding perspective, we have a highly educated workforce, we even have more subtle things, a very desirable place to live, a rich arts scene,” says Lenox.
The small business growth rate in Charlottesville is 4.5 percent, according to data from 2004-2007, compared to 5.92 percent as the average of the other best places listed in the article.
Seilheimer agrees. While Charlottesville is an expensive place to live, he says that it is relatively inexpensive compared to other areas such as the Silicon Valley or the Boston area.
“It’s a good place to take a risk. We really believed in the potential of Charlottesville both in the short-term and in the long-term, to be a great place for business,” he says. “It gives us a great deal of pride to be an employer in Charlottesville.”
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