WisBusiness: Research Park rolls out Madison incubator suites

By Brian E. Clark

WisBusiness.com

MADISON – When the Metro Innovation Center on East Washington Ave. begins filling with tenants, they may look a lot like the student-run companies SearchCloud.net, Proactive Sleep or even Wisconsin Relics.

Those three young firms were on display – along with eight others – Thursday afternoon at the old Gisholt Machine Co. Building, where the highly successful University Research Park (URP) has opened 10 incubator suites for nascent firms started by students and other entrepreneurs.

Greg Hyer, a URP associate director, said he believes the Metro Innovation Center will be an ideal setting for new information technology, engineering, medical device or computer science companies that are just coming out of the blocks. He said the URP has spent $300,000 to date on 10 suites that are wired with state-of-the-art phone and data connections.

Steven Eisenhauer, a 22-year-old UW-Madison senior studying international business and entrepreneurship, said he and partner Don Muehlbauer are seeking investors to get their search engine company off the ground.

“We’re better than Google because our system lets users decide which words in a string are most important,” Eisenhauer said boldly. “They are called ‘weighted keywords’ and they give better results on the first page.”

Eisenhauer, who has been doing web design projects since he was 12, said he might be interested in becoming a Metro Innovation Center tenant.

“This might be a good place to grow,” mused Eisenhauer, who said product is in beta and already has a core of users. “Right now, we need some investors so we can bring in another programmer.”

Down the hall, Dan Gartenberg, a 23-year senior psychology student, was explaining how his “Proactive Sleep” iPod alarm clock application measures a individual’s sleep cycles. His rapt listener was none other than former UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley.

Using sleep-cycle data, Gartenberg explained, the alarm clock would awaken users in a period of light sleep so they could get up more refreshed than if they’d been roused from a deep sleep.

“We’re still testing it to figure out the proper algorithms,” explained Gartenberg, who said he has long been interested in human-machine interactions and worked in a UW-Madison psych lab for three years.

Wiley, an inventor himself, was clearly impressed by Eisenhauer and Gartenberg’s efforts.

“There is some fabulous stuff here,” he said. “And the Metro Innovation Center is exactly what we need. I hope they fill up not only these 10 suites but the whole block with start-ups.

“I’m very proud of these students. The amount of creativity here is amazing.”

Wiley, a former Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation board member, had some special advice for Eisenhauer when he spoke with him. Wiley urged the young businessman to coordinate his patent efforts with WARF to help fend off potential challenges from companies like Google.

Wiley is now interim director of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. He is also teaching public policy courses as an education professor and lecturing at the La Follette School of Public Affairs.

As for Wisconsin Relics, president Bryon Shannon said his lifestyle apparel company celebrates Wisconsin and its young pioneers.

“I don’t know a thing about writing code,” said Shannon, a 22-year-old senior who will be receiving his degree in management and real estate.

“But it could be good to be in an environment like this just to rub shoulders with other entrepreneurs,” he said with a grin.

URP’s Hyer said he is confident that start-ups will soon be filling the suites at the East Side incubator, which has been open for less than a month.

He said Accelerate Madison, a IT networking and business support group, will host a job and vendor fair at the Metro Innovation Center on April 23rd.

“That should help get the word out to the right people,” he said.

Hyer said the down economy might also give the center a boost as laid-off IT workers with an entrepreneurial bent pursue ideas and attempt to turn them into companies.

For more information on the Metro Innovation Center, contact the University Research Park at 608-441-8000.