By MATT LINDSEY

POTSDAM – Five new local businesses and start-up companies will work together and with Clarkson University in hopes of helping each firm grow and reach its potential while possibly creating local jobs.

The businesses will work out of the newly remodeled historic Old Main, in incubator spaces with state-of-the-art technology.

Five of the seven available incubator spaces in Old Main are now occupied with several organizations looking at the remaining two spaces, proving the demand for this type of space in the North Country.

“We’ve filled five of the seven spaces in less than a month,” said Director of Clarkson University’s Shipley Center Jamey Hoose. “I think that is an outstanding achievement and a great opportunity.”

The five businesses are Lexingford Publishing, Jack of Trades Apps, Northern Wealth Management, Valerie Visser Photography and Aim High Driving School.

The grand opening and ribbon cutting of Clarkson’s Old Main Business Incubator is scheduled for 1 p.m. today in Old Main Room 2102, second floor, 55 Main St. There will be a reception, speakers and tours. Clarkson President Tony Collins and university trustee Robert R. Ziek Jr., president of ZSource Ltd. are expected to speak.

“Peyton Hall incubator space is already bursting at the seams, and we wanted to find a way to segment out,” said Executive Director of Shipley Center Matt Draper said. “A goal is to drive economic development.”

The businesses at the Peyton Hall incubator are often manufacturing-based. The businesses that will be housed at the Old Main incubator will be more arts or software based, Draper said.

“We are looking at non-physically impactful businesses,” Draper said.

He said they didn't want the new businesses to be near all the noise and smells associated with some of the other businesses that operate in Peyton Hall.

Draper said they wouldn't want something such as a chemistry error to damage one of the most historic and oldest buildings in Clarkson.

The purpose of the incubator is to provide resources to start-up companies to help with their growth potential.

Draper said the aim is to have the businesses have something good to offer the community, whether it be a product or employment.

So far the five businesses in the Old Main incubator have created nine jobs and the goal is to grow that ten-fold, Hoose said.

“Hopefully this is just the beginning of more jobs…but we are already great results,” Hoose said.

Each business can help the other in some way, as well as take advantage of the vast resources that Clarkson offers, Draper said.

Lexingford Publishing could help to tell the story of Jack of Trades Apps. Jack of Trades Apps could create an app for Valerie Visser Photography. Northern Wealth Management can provide financial guidance to each business and take advantage of the resources of each other business.

“It is creating a community where businesses can rely on each other,” Draper said.

Each business also has the chance to use the university’s connections or speak with faculty about questions and concerns associated with running their business.

Businesses can receive assistance with patent preparation, business planning, exposure to potential investors, help connecting with alumni who had relevant expertise and market research.

Draper says the goal is for the businesses to “stay here, plant their roots and be part of the community.”

Businesses sign one- or two-year leases with the goal to move on or move out. Some businesses move to other buildings within Clarkson and some have ventured out on their own.

The Robot Zone recently made the move from an incubator to 71 Market St. They are a company that provides a fun and interactive ways for K-12 students to participate and learn about science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). They provide after-school and weekend programs and will host summer camps in the future.

LC Drives, a small engineering company, which occupied space at Clarkson’s Shipley Center, has moved on to another building within Clarkson.

Movement is also based on each business hitting milestones set for it. Goals include how start a company, where to locate the business, how to build a management team and how to talk with investors.

“There are failures…and that's ok,” Draper said.

Draper said that one of eight to ten businesses succeed, but if they can take the talent and knowledge and soak it all up so that it doesn't disappear, that's a good thing.

“It takes time and doesn't happen overnight…but we are seeing the successes of this,” Hoose said.

To date, Clarkson's Shipley Center has created 131 business startups with 363 active projects currently in the pipeline.