VELOCITY
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A work area with meeting rooms to talk to clients and associates, a ping pong table, foosball table, and Xbox to take a relaxing break, and a ton of people around you who have gone through or are going through your experiences as an entrepreneur. Those are just some of the perks that Velocity offers uprising entrepreneurs in Southern Indiana.
The idea of Velocity, located in Jeffersonville, is to help entrepreneurs get their business going. They help those businesses through resources like their accelerator program. In the accelerator program, Velocity brings in a class of startups, a minimum of five companies, and gives them $15,000. In exchange Velocity gets a small piece of equity in their company. |
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“The program is based on getting entrepreneurs out of the building and talking to potential customers and partners and really just understanding their business model,” director of operations Jacy Cruz said.
Funding from two foundations, The Ogle Foundation and Blue Sky Foundations, started Velocity. A board then recruited Tony Schy because of his entrepreneur experience to run Velocity.
Schy was the co-owner of a health care auditing company called Chapman Kelly. Schy and co-owner Mary Chapman sold the company in 2010 for $13 million.
The company was founded in 2001 and was at once named 1,035 on the Inc. 5,000 list, which ranks the top 5,000 U.S. public companies.
Cruz believes that choosing Schy to run Velocity gave the company credibility.
“Having an entrepreneur at the helm gave Velocity credibility from the get-go,” said Cruz. “The fact that he was attached to it really helped Velocity hit the ground running instead of trying to gain the support of the community.”
Cruz manages the day-to-day operations at Velocity.
A part-time membership for Velocity is $40 a month and includes access to conference rooms and the ability to work at their facility for up to 20 hours per week. Full-time membership is $80 per month and includes unlimited ability to work at the facility.
Getting great experience and networking skills isn’t the only perk of doing the accelerator program at Velocity.
“Our accelerator graduates get free space at Velocity for life,” said Cruz.
The free space includes open areas with tables and chairs, private rooms for more secure meetings, and a bunch of items that help the entrepreneurs take a nice mental break every now and again. Those items including a foosball table, ping pong table, and Xbox. This co-working space is meant to feel inexpensive and be a better place to have meetings at rather than a coffee shop.
CEO of US Chia Zack Pennington and his company went through the accelerator program at Velocity last summer.
“We wanted to come to Velocity to be held accountable for trying and testing out all these different ways to sell and market our products and interact with our customers,” said Pennington.
Pennington loves the open working space that Velocity offers their accelerator graduates.
“The open working space is very valuable for networking and meeting people,” said Pennington.
Funding from two foundations, The Ogle Foundation and Blue Sky Foundations, started Velocity. A board then recruited Tony Schy because of his entrepreneur experience to run Velocity.
Schy was the co-owner of a health care auditing company called Chapman Kelly. Schy and co-owner Mary Chapman sold the company in 2010 for $13 million.
The company was founded in 2001 and was at once named 1,035 on the Inc. 5,000 list, which ranks the top 5,000 U.S. public companies.
Cruz believes that choosing Schy to run Velocity gave the company credibility.
“Having an entrepreneur at the helm gave Velocity credibility from the get-go,” said Cruz. “The fact that he was attached to it really helped Velocity hit the ground running instead of trying to gain the support of the community.”
Cruz manages the day-to-day operations at Velocity.
A part-time membership for Velocity is $40 a month and includes access to conference rooms and the ability to work at their facility for up to 20 hours per week. Full-time membership is $80 per month and includes unlimited ability to work at the facility.
Getting great experience and networking skills isn’t the only perk of doing the accelerator program at Velocity.
“Our accelerator graduates get free space at Velocity for life,” said Cruz.
The free space includes open areas with tables and chairs, private rooms for more secure meetings, and a bunch of items that help the entrepreneurs take a nice mental break every now and again. Those items including a foosball table, ping pong table, and Xbox. This co-working space is meant to feel inexpensive and be a better place to have meetings at rather than a coffee shop.
CEO of US Chia Zack Pennington and his company went through the accelerator program at Velocity last summer.
“We wanted to come to Velocity to be held accountable for trying and testing out all these different ways to sell and market our products and interact with our customers,” said Pennington.
Pennington loves the open working space that Velocity offers their accelerator graduates.
“The open working space is very valuable for networking and meeting people,” said Pennington.
Velocity also sometimes offers little competitions for entrepreneurs.
“We’ve had pitch competitions in the past where entrepreneurs will apply to participate,” said Cruz. “We bring some in, and there’s a panel of judges, and they present their idea.”
In the last year Velocity has also expanded its classes by introducing kids to coding and game design.
One of the instructors involved is Velocity Director of Education Mark Lorence.
“We work with kids from all over Southern Indiana and Louisville area,” said Lorence. “We teach everything from coding, making video games, and hardware classes with robotics.”
As of now, Velocity has taught 120 kids to code. Lorence says that the kids program is great because it fits Velocity's core purpose.
“It fits with the core mission of Velocity, which is to raise up entrepreneurs in this area,” said Lorence. “So getting kids involved with computer programming and hardware development can get them interested in a certain track that they might want to pursue later in life.”
“We’ve had pitch competitions in the past where entrepreneurs will apply to participate,” said Cruz. “We bring some in, and there’s a panel of judges, and they present their idea.”
In the last year Velocity has also expanded its classes by introducing kids to coding and game design.
One of the instructors involved is Velocity Director of Education Mark Lorence.
“We work with kids from all over Southern Indiana and Louisville area,” said Lorence. “We teach everything from coding, making video games, and hardware classes with robotics.”
As of now, Velocity has taught 120 kids to code. Lorence says that the kids program is great because it fits Velocity's core purpose.
“It fits with the core mission of Velocity, which is to raise up entrepreneurs in this area,” said Lorence. “So getting kids involved with computer programming and hardware development can get them interested in a certain track that they might want to pursue later in life.”
