By Allan Maurer
ATLANTA—Although Will Seippel, founder and CEO of WorthPoint, an online database and networking site for collectors, lives in Atlanta, that’s not the only reason he wanted to move his company here from Northern Virginia. He also wanted the rich interaction among other entrepreneurs and startups at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center.
WorthPoint, founded earlier this year in Reston, VA, has already secured more than $2.1 million in funding. A company spokesman tells TechJournal South it may raise additional capital up to $10 million. The company is up to 17 employees.
Traffic to the company’s Web site has grown 15 percent a week, “Which speaks to the need for the product,” says Seippel.
The Web site promises to simplify the way collectors can find and share information about the items they own or want to buy and sell, from art and antiques to furniture, china and glassware, and from coins, stamps, model cars and trains to flags, militaria and political memorabilia. “I think we can revitalize collecting,” Seippel notes.
Seippel, a lifelong collector himself, owns a warm-up jacket worn by one-time New York Yankees homerun hitter Mickey Mantle, several jerseys worn by pitcher Nolan Ryan, and Lionel Model Trains, among other Americana.
My mind was made up
Seippel says he did not want to move his family, including his five children, four 10-year old quadruplet boys, and a 15-year-old son, to Reston, but he was prepared to locate the company there if he could not get into the ATDC. “My mind was made up that that was the place for us, and we just had to convince them we had a good business model.”
A Clifton, VA native, Seippel started the company at George Mason University, where he is vice chair of the business school. He donated 2.5 percent of the company to the university. WorthPoint will maintain a tech office in Reston, although its headquarters are now in the ATDC.
Getting in took awhile
“The ATDC is hard so hard to get into,” he says. “They have a huge success rate. I thought if we couldn’t get in, we would put everything up in Virginia.”
They eventually did get in, but it didn’t happen right away. “They kicked our tires for six months,” Seippel says.
Charles Ross, acting general manager and director of entrepreneurial services at the ATDC tells TechJournal South that it looks at nine criteria in evaluating whether they’ll admit a startup.
“Our mission is really to grow Georgia’s technology economy by helping entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies,” he says. “So we try to identify those that will have the highest number and highest quality of jobs for the state.”
Many of the criteria, Ross says, are the same as those investment professionals use to conduct due diligence and evaluate the overall potential of a business.
Others are particular to the ATDC. “Right off the bat we look at the company’s potential economic impact,” Ross adds.
Tough competition
“We also look at its overall fit with our particular ATDC model and with the overall entrepreneurial community here, its uniqueness, value proposition, and the quality of the management team.” The process can take from couple of weeks to a couple of months.
“Last year we looked at about 180 applicants and brought in 13 companies,” Ross says. “We do try to add value in the process for every company. It may not be a fit for the incubator, but we may identify ways the company could tweak its business model, weaknesses, or other markets they could pursue.”
The idea is for member companies to learn from the community at large and the other members of the incubator. “We encourage an open-door policy,” Ross says.
That is a big part of what attracted Seippel to the ATDC, he says. “It gets so sterile with a tech company sitting out in an office park full of other people with businesses totally unrelated to me. What value is there in doing that? It a much cheaper cost of living and Atlanta is a young, up and coming city.”
Not to mention that, “An office with a window is a luxury for a startup. I haven’t had one in the past. I love it down here. I feel like we died and went to heaven.”
TechJournal South’s original story on WorthPoint:
http://techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=4345
On the Web: www.worthpoint.com
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