Deadline for Applying to 1492 Business Accelerator October 12

Less than one week remains for teams to submit their business ideas to the 1492 business accelerator program being presented by TechColumbus, the Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD) and Columbus State Community College (CSCC).  Applications will be accepted online through 5 p.m. October 12, 2011 at www.onefourninetwo.com
 
1492 offers entrepreneurs access to business mentoring and funding to help them transform ideas for new products or services into viable businesses over the course of 11 weeks.
 
From the pool of applicants, ten teams will be chosen as semi-finalists to present their concepts before a judging panel comprising designated judges from TechColumbus, CCAD and CSCC.  From these, five finalists will be selected to receive vital business coaching services and funding (up to $20,000 per team) to transform their ideas into viable companies.
 
TechColumbus ran the first 1492 business accelerator program in 2009. Focused solely on mobile and Web-based applications, the program spun out MobileXpeditions LLC, a custom apps development company that specializes in location- and experience-based mobile applications.
 
“When we entered the 1492 accelerator, we were just barely beyond the ‘sketches on a napkin’ stage,” says Mark Gilicinski, founder and CEO of MobileXpeditions. “We were pretty sure we had a good idea, but 1492 helped us turn that idea into a company very quickly.”
 
In fact, during the course of the program, MobileXpeditions transformed those sketches to the first fully functioning iteration of its software platform, MX.

MX is a content-driven platform that allows venues and brands to integrate robust media (i.e. text, video, web links, high-resolution imagery, etc.) into mobile apps that provide users multiple ways to explore a product or location on a mobile device.

For venues, this enhances a visitor’s experience and promotes repeat visits.  For products and services, it provides an excellent B2B sales tool for showcasing features and benefits using a tablet device like the Apple iPad.  Since it was developed as a platform, content creators can use the solution to create apps similar to how WordPress is used to create Web sites.

“1492 dramatically accelerated the time it took for us to go from concept to working software by providing the mentoring and financial support we needed,” says Gilicinski.
 
“I’m not saying we wouldn’t have eventually gotten there on our own – that’s something we’ll never know.  But I do know, we got there much more quickly thanks to 1492, and in today’s lightning-fast competitive environment, such rapid deployment is critical.”
     
“Business accelerators are becoming increasingly significant in the entrepreneurial pipeline,” said Ted Ford, president and CEO of TechColumbus.  “They are a proven method of speeding up the time it takes to launch new ventures.  We saw this first-hand with our first 1492 accelerator program and with the recently completed 10-xelerator program at OSU.”

So what kinds of support can companies expect from a business accelerator program?  In the case of MobileXpeditions, 1492 business coaches mentored the company through basic business considerations – everything from product features to vendor evaluation, market research, defining the ideal customer, competitive analysis and determining the optimum price point. And funding from the program helped MobileXpeditions develop and deploy the first version of its software.
 
One of the key milestones for MobileXpeditions was that it was able to secure a first customer commitment from COSI before graduating from the program.
  
“Securing that commitment helped validate us in the eyes of other potential customers,” says Gilicinski.  “Without that commitment, it would have been much harder, and would have taken longer, to get the company off the ground.”
 
To those considering entering a business accelerator program, Gilicinski says it’s important to completely buy in to the entrepreneurial way of life.
 
“You have to do a serious gut check and ask yourself if you are really ready to venture forth on a new idea.  The mentoring and the funding are all very good – but if you expect to make it as an entrepreneur, you have to be ready to put your whole self in.”
   
Since graduating from 1492, MobileXpeditions has gone on to garner accolades from other startup competitions such as the 6ixth City TechFest in Cleveland.  The company has also raised additional funding through the TechColumbus TechGenesis program, which awarded MobileXpeditions a $50,000 grant to further refine and expand its product offering.
 
But Gilicinski says the most rewarding affirmations come from the company’s growing client list and the number of repeat clients who return to MobileXpeditions for additional apps.

“Celebrity Cruises is entering its second year as a client.  Four of their premiere ships now deploy iPad apps using the MX platform.  These apps support multiple languages in order to serve their internationally diverse passengers,” reports Gilicinski.

Gilicinski says one of the upcoming projects the company is working on is a competitive tablet-based game app for a corporate retreat.  Over 1,000 people will use the app at a Caribbean resort this coming January.

MobileXpeditions has also expanded beyond location-based apps.  The company has been recently engaged by PerkinElmer, a $2 billion scientific instruments company, to create an interactive sales support app that can be used at trade shows, as well as in individual sales calls to demonstrate the features and benefits of their products.
 
“Our flexible platform can deliver a variety of experiences for mobile devices. Once clients engage with the software, they discover the possibilities are limitless and they return to us to create new experiences,” says Gilicinski.
 
In the coming months, TechColumbus intends to continue expansion of the 1492 program throughout Central Ohio.  By partnering with a number of other collaborators throughout the region, TechColumbus, through its incubator, staff and services, will provide the promising young companies emerging from the region’s accelerators with a sufficient runway along which to grow and prosper.
 
For more information on MobileXpeditions, visit www.mobilexpeditions.com
For more on the 1492 business accelerator, visit www.onefourninetwo.com