Category: C-BIZ

Mike Appleby figured he’d keep his big city job when he moved to Charlottesville.

Appleby’s Boston-based employer kept him on to run a development team when he moved to C’ville to get married. But Appleby quickly came to love the area—“it’s the nicest place I’ve seen anywhere,” he says—and five years later he hatched a plan with an associate to launch a local company.

Appleby started his manufacturing business, Mikro Systems, in January 2001 with just three employees. Today, the firm has 130 in-house employees, and another 70 build Mikro’s high-tech investment casting cores at a nearby Siemens plant.

Appleby came to Albemarle County because it’s a place where he wanted to live. He stayed in no small part because he believes it’s a good place to do business.

“We loved it here—we loved the community and we wanted to be a part of the community,” Appleby says. “This isn’t the manufacturing mecca of America, but it’s still a great area to build a company.”

By the numbers

As business owner drawn to Charlottesville for personal reasons, Appleby’s not alone. From biotech mavens to tech geeks to restaurateurs, entrepreneurs have taken to the area like businessmen to suits. Almost to a person, they say it’s the quality of life more than the commercial climate that initially made them open up shop.

“I didn’t move here to start companies,” says Michael Prichard, who founded WillowTree in 2008 and has since moved on to start a new firm, Metis Machine. “I was like a lot of people I know who have come here for another reason.”

Travis Wilburn, co-owner of Stay Charlottesville, says when he started renting homes to C’ville visitors in 2007, he didn’t know what to expect of the local business climate.

“I’ve been here since 2000, and I accidentally fell into my own business,” Wilburn says. “We built a guest house out back, and we have become a hospitality group as Charlottesville has evolved.”

Helping hands

By partnering with business owners, SCORE gets results

By Joanna Breault

Laura Van Camp’s mind was buzzing with a hundred details and no small amount of entrepreneurial zeal when Steve Cooper asked her one simple question: “How many pairs of jeans do you need to sell each day to succeed?”

The question brought her down to earth; it was both grounding and practical, just like Steve.

“I walked into that meeting with Steve—like I know other entrepreneurs walk into a mentorship relationship—and you just want people to be automatically on board, to be in the moment with you,” Van Camp says. “But you really need to take it to the very beginning. That’s what Steve did with me. He helped ground me and make sure I built a foundation first.”

Van Camp owns Jean Theory, a downtown boutique carrying designer denim and staffed by employees obsessed with matching customers to perfectly fitting jeans. Before she opened the doors nine years ago, she began meeting with Cooper, a retired employee of Hughes Aircraft Company who had been highly successful in business. Cooper helped Van Camp project revenues and expenses for her first year, do research on Charlottesville demographics, put together a profit and loss statement, and prepare for small business loan meetings with banks.

It sounds like a mentorship match made in heaven, but it was actually a match made by the Central Virginia chapter of SCORE, a nationwide organization of mentors devoted to supporting small business owners. Any aspiring entrepreneur in the organization’s footprint, at any point in launching a business, can apply for mentorship through SCORE. Each applicant is matched with a mentor who will take them through a structured yet personalized process of planning and starting their business. The mentor and client decide upon the duration and frequency of meetings and all mentoring services are completely free.

After almost a decade, Van Camp and Cooper still meet regularly.

“Sometimes there is something we are working on and other times he just checks in with me,” Van Camp says. “It’s nice because small business ownership can be really lonely. There’s nobody giving me raises or patting me on the back. There are no incentive trips. So it’s nice to have that person who is saying, ‘You are doing a great job, I’m proud of you, let’s have lunch.’ I got really lucky.”

This kind of encouragement and help is the heartbeat of SCORE, which has 300 chapters nationwide. Since the 1980s, the central Virginia chapter of SCORE has been headquartered in Charlottesville’s Chamber of Commerce building, serving Charlottesville and eight counties beyond. The chapter currently boasts 18 volunteers; they are mostly retired businesspeople now seeking to make a difference through mentorship. In the past year, SCORE of Central Virginia has taken on 271 new cases.

“We are there for the whole story,” says local SCORE chairman Bob Lenahan. “We are there at the very beginning, and we are there when they open their business. If they have cash flow problems, if they have employee problems, we are still with them; we are still available to help.”

In addition to ongoing mentorship, SCORE offers workshops on such topics as social media marketing, how new tax laws affect businesses, and how to deal with sexual harassment and discrimination issues in the workplace. For more information, check out centralvirginia.score.org.—Joanna Breault

But while they may have arrived for other reasons, many have found Charlottesville to be a great place to start a business. According to the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, between 2007 and 2010, private enterprise jobs grew more than twice as fast locally (9.23 percent) than in the rest of the state (4.61 percent). Greater Charlottesville has grown faster than the rest of Virginia in eight of 10 private enterprise industry sectors, including natural resources and mining, leisure and hospitality, construction and manufacturing, and financial activities, among others.

In summer 2016, Entrepreneur magazine ranked Charlottesville No. 4 on its list of 50 top cities for entrepreneurs, a ranking that takes into account cost of living, business tax rates, percentage of college grads, well-paying job growth, and number of venture capital deals.

According to Tracey Greene of the Charlottesville Angel Network, which has invested $6.5 million in 32 tech companies since it launched in 2015, C’ville has a unique infrastructure in place that other cities don’t have.

“Take the Richmond area, which I have looked at tangentially,” she says. “A lot of start-up companies come to Charlottesville because of the assets we have that they don’t. They have more corporate support, but they don’t have as mature an angel network as we have.”

Getting it right

Greene says entrepreneurship is in this town’s blood. “Charlottesville has been known since the days of Jefferson to have an entrepreneurial focus and to be encouraging of entrepreneurs,” she says.

What it takes to keep that going is building on success, cultivating individuals willing to take risks, and investing in those risks, she says.

All that’s starting to snowball. In early 2016, the National Venture Capital Association named Charlottesville the fastest-growing venture capital ecosystem in the United States. The organization reports that from 2010 to 2015, venture funding increased from $250,000 to $27.7 million in Charlottesville, one of many cities nationwide to experience a boom in venture capital investments. Where only one local start-up received venture funds in 2010, by 2015, nine saw significant investments. Firms like Jaffray Woodriff’s Felton Group and Greene’s Angel Network have anchored the investments in technology-based businesses. The Community Investment Collaborative has played a similar role in the service industry.

Students, start your engines

UVA really, really wants students to start companies. At least, that’s our conclusion after learning about all the programs on Grounds that nurture young entrepreneurs. Of course the major hotbeds at UVA for those with a business bent are the Darden School of Business, home to 900 graduate students, and its Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. But there are a number of smaller centers, too. Like…

HackCville

If you’re a UVA student with a startup dream, you’re probably already a member of HackCville, which nurtures hundreds of future tech/design/media pros within two clubhouses on the Corner and a tight-knit community, locally and virtually. Members can access hands-on skills courses, how-to-launch workshops, summer internships, and field trips to cities around the country where they connect with business-minded alums.

iLab at UVA

From next-gen spinal surgery techniques to single-serve bake-at-home desserts, new companies nurtured by UVA’s iLab cover a lot of ground. A cross-grounds program primarily funded by the Batten Institute at Darden, the iLab offers 10,000 square feet of workspace, mentoring and networking for entrepreneurs and innovators—plus a 10-week entrepreneurial boot camp. Since 2000, the iLab incubator program has provided 250 companies with more than $1.5 million in grants.

OpenGrounds at UVA

Launched in 2012, OpenGrounds aims to bridge disciplines to help solve the world’s toughest problems. Under its umbrella, an extremely diverse group of projects take place—from design proposals addressing water pollution in India to biology-based robotics. OpenGrounds showcases such projects at annual festivals and sponsors film screenings, discussions, and publications that foster creative collaboration.

Galant Center for Entrepreneurship

Galant is the McIntire School of Commerce’s cradle for entrepreneurship. It offers speakers, start-up trips to Silicon Valley and various East Coast cities, and a pitch competition that has funneled more than $1.5 million to UVA-affiliated ventures.

SE@UVA

Would-be social entrepreneurs come to SE@UVA for the chance to kick-start their careers in global problem-solving. The program runs its own pitch competition, brings in speakers, and sponsors study-abroad opportunities, like a trip to Dominica to observe social entrepreneurship in action (think organic farms and sustainable tourism).

Pike Fellows Program

Three to five teams of engineering-student entrepreneurs each year are selected to be Pike fellows. They get intensive support and mentoring, plus up to $5,000 in seed money for projects based on novel technologies—and they can compete in an annual spring competition for the $50,000 Pike Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

UVA Licensing and Ventures Group

The LVG is the pipeline by which scientific discoveries made at UVA—many of them medical technologies—receive patents and are brought to market. The group connects industry with UVA-based innovators, and hooks investors up with growing companies. UVA itself, via a $10 million seed fund created in 2015, is also an investor, with the fund being managed by LVG.

UVA E-Cup

The E-Cup (that’s E for Entrepreneur) is an annual competition in which UVA students at all levels can put forward their ideas—and those ideas don’t even have to be fully fleshed out. The “Concept” stage of the competition doesn’t require a business plan or a firmed-up team, while other stages demand that students develop their plan more thoroughly. Do it right and competitors can walk away with first place and $20K.

UVA Lighthouse & Works in Progress

Students who want to talk over their entrepreneurial projects with other innovators—possibly in the middle of the night—can take advantage of Lighthouse, a 24/7 “entrepreneurial workspace” and the home of Works In Progress, a community of peers in the startup realm. Personal relationships—including with dedicated staff members—are the emphasis here.—Erika Howsare

The city is taking steps to seed small businesses of all types. Through the Office of Economic Development’s Advancing Charlottesville Entrepreneurs Program, C’ville has assisted more than 70 businesses over the past five years. The grant program provides funding for advertising, equipment, and supplies. The OED’s GO Hire program also provides grant funding, with a focus on attracting, training, and retaining employees.

Brendan Richardson, who co-founded satellite image data firm Astraea in 2016, has taken advantage of such local funding. In 2017, Astraea received $1,000 per new hire via state funding, and the city matched the grant.

“It’s been great,” Richardson says. “I wouldn’t say that it is by any means the primary motivator for hiring—that’s growth and customer growth—but it helps to offset recruitment costs.”

Richardson says the University of Virginia is critical for Charlottesville’s entrepreneurial evolution. The school helps produce not only significant amounts of intellectual property that leads to commercial tech, but also individuals willing to stay in the community and build their businesses.

Some of those individuals, though, take a winding path to setting up shop, according to Greene.

“A lot young professionals move away to big cities and then venture back to build their families,” she says. “We have such a high quality of life. It’s a place where people want to work and live. They want to come to a city that has a slower pace of life, where you can breathe and feel the air in your lungs but still have that liveliness.”

And while Greene notes technology firms have spearheaded the entrepreneurial growth in Charlottesville in recent years, she says every tech job requires at least four traditional jobs for support. “You have all these jobs—baristas and restaurants, lawyers and accountants, retail shops—and it takes all of that,” she says. “Tech bolsters an entire ecosystem.”

Ty Cooper provides some of that support via his digital marketing and events firm Lifeview Marketing. He says smaller communities like Charlottesville bring a loyalty that larger metro areas don’t.

“They tend to support who they know,” he says. “If there is a builder who’s local that can only build for three times as much, they are going to use an outside builder. But when it comes down to it, they support people in their own community. You see that in most smaller markets; it’s more intimate.”

Prichard says Charlottesville punches above its weight when it comes to filling skilled labor positions.

“I can’t speak to biotech or energy, which are doing really well, but for a tech company there are advantages in Charlottesville,” he says. “There are really smart people that want to live here because of the quality of life. You can find the right talent to join the team, and you can do it at a lower cost structure than you can in San Francisco.”

Room for improvement

Charlottesville, of course, isn’t perfect when it comes to nurturing entrepreneurs. Being a smaller market means a smaller pool of customers, for starters, and it can be more difficult to convince outsiders that local companies are the real deal.

“Sometimes there’s a perception of Charlottesville,” Prichard says. “It can be harder when you walk into a room with the bigger players.”

That national perception took a hit after last year’s Unite the Right rallies, says OED director Chris Engel. But according to Engel, his office and others are working to combat that perception and keep investments flowing into C’ville.

At the same time, Engel recognizes much of the strife in C’ville and beyond is due to economic opportunity, “or the lack thereof.”

Cooper says encouraging diversity and assisting minority businesses is an area in which the city could improve. “The numbers are low on minority business,” he says. “But there has been talk about trying to change that.”

Greene says the community would also benefit from an “innovation front door.” While Charlottesville has no shortage of incubators and work spaces that invigorate entrepreneurs, folks in the tech business don’t have a place to go to be pointed in the right direction.

For a manufacturing business like Appleby’s, workforce issues are at the forefront. He says the city would see manufacturing growth if it built a “pipeline of young people out of high school” that want to go into the trades.

“We’re in the aerospace business, so we’ll be here for decades,” he says. “We need people who will roll up their sleeves and make parts.”—Shea Gibbs

Technical details

Startups in Charlottesville need not feel alone—there is a raft of  organizations standing ready to offer help and guidance. A person could stay very busy attending all the tech-related meetups and programs in town, pressing the flesh with possible investors along the way. Here’s a rundown of some resources local entrepreneurs can tap.

Charlottesville Business Innovation Council

A networking group with a 21-year history—in this game, that’s a long time—CBIC is the force behind a long list of local tech events. Its annual awards gala recognizes companies, startups, and innovators (Mikro Systems took Business of the Year in 2018) that are pushing the local tech industry forward. CBIC also runs a Tech Tour to introduce students to tech companies; casual happy-hour mixers; amped-up espresso discussions; and more formal panel events. It’s all meant to support entrepreneurs, build community, and foster learning.

Cville Bio Hub

The Bio Hub promotes Charlottesville as a hotbed for biotech innovation—by its own count, the industry employees 1,800 people in the area. More than 60 organizations are members of the Bio Hub, which hosts forums on topics like cancer research and locally developed pharmaceuticals. Organized in 2016, the Bio Hub won an $80,000 grant in August from the GO Virginia Initiative to continue growing the biotech industry here and attract top talent.

Charlottesville Open Bio Labs

A nonprofit focused on training locals to take part in a growing biotech industry, Open Bio Labs offers a lab space—stocked with everything from a 3D printer to spectrophotometers—that’s open to the public. Members can use the lab and enjoy discounts on Open Bio Labs’ courses, which are aimed at both K-12 students and adults. Mentorship for real-world projects—startup companies, scientific papers, and personal science quests—is part of the mission, too.

Charlottesville Technology Incubator

Office space on the Downtown Mall, if you’re a startup, is a pretty good deal. Founded in 2009, CTI provides fledgling tech companies prime real estate that makes networking easier (and comes with phones), plus structured events and mentorship for new entrepreneurs. WillowTree and Relay Foods are both onetime clients, along with a dozen or so others. Founder Gary Henry names “counseling and connections” as the most important benefits CTI offers.

Machine

An incubator in a flexible space that it shares with CBIC and the Charlottesville Angel Network, Machine has facilitated more than $5 million in investments for six local startups since 2016. While Machine itself isn’t an investor, says Alex Goodman, who runs it, “We’ve helped [companies] realize funding success in their early days.” Machine also offers office space, mentorship and other in-kind benefits to startups that successfully complete its application process.

Charlottesville Women In Tech

Aiming to make Charlottesville safe and friendly to female techies, four-year-old CWIT sponsors a series of monthly meetups for local women in the tech field. Providing “much-needed networking time for women,” says board vice president Kim Wilkens, the meetups have proven so popular that this year they grew into a one-day conference, the SWITCH ON! Summit held November 9. Meanwhile, CWIT also runs programming for K-12 girls through its Twech-Girls initiative, reaching more than 600 local girls last year. High school students can even get hands-on with real biotech research through the Bio-Med Tech-Girls summer program. Sounds like girl power to us.

Center for Innovative Technology

The Herndon, Virginia, office of CIT is an inspiration in itself—a striking, angular building made of reflective glass, the winning design in a 1985 competition. In the years since then, CIT has provided a wide range of tech-related services. Most relevant to entrepreneurs are its programs to connect Virginia-based startups with seed money and government contracts. Workshops and talks provide ideas and connections, too.

Neon Guild

If you’re a tech pro around here, chances are good you’re already part of the Neon Guild—it’s collected 450 members in its 22 years of existence. Guild members get together monthly for pizza, beer, and focused talks (October’s was on using storytelling skills to enhance user experience), and they stay in close communication via a lively email list. Dues-free and stripped-down, the Guild emphasizes personal connections and a casual tone.

First Wednesdays

Here’s another chance to mingle with techies once a month—in this case, at Champion Brewing Company. “No speakers, presentations, or slide decks,” promises the website: The idea’s just to chat with other folks interested in technology and business.—Erika Howsare

After selling the tech business he’d built over 15 years, Eric Walter wanted to do something more rewarding. “More fulfilling spiritually,” he says. “Out from behind a desk and outside.”

His Chicago tech business, Gorilla, had Patagonia as a client. “Sustainability infused everything they do,” says Walter. “That changed something for me.” After considering a few different environmentally sustainable business ventures, Walter founded a food scrap-composting facility and compost-hauling business.

“I’d always been a recycler,” he says. “And I liked that composting physically turns waste into a cool end product.”

Black Bear Composting, which launched in 2011, remains the only local commercial composting business. Though the company partially closed in 2016, Walter brought it back from the brink of extinction by adjusting his business model and working with his clients to build a company that is sustainable, in all senses of the word.

The beginning

Although Walter had entrepreneurial experience, he was new to composting. He hired Craig Coker of Coker Composting and Consulting as a technical advisor, and Coker helped Walter figure out what kind of facility he wanted to open, and how much space it would need. They settled on “turned windrow composting,” which involves piling organic waste in long rows, which are turned to improve porosity and oxygen content as well as control moisture and temperature. The method is well-suited to large volumes of compost.

Coker also helped Walter navigate the permitting process at Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality. Walter met department officials to share the company’s intentions, operational plans, and approach. “Our regulators wanted to see composting facilities succeed,” says Walter. “Establishing a good working relationship is critical.”

Black Bear Composting would serve Charlottesville and the central Shenandoah Valley, which included four small cities with a combined population of about 150,000. The area also had a large potential market for the finished compost in agriculture and land development businesses.

Walter and Coker went looking for land on which to build the facility—30 to 40 acres with good buffers from neighboring properties. Walter met with economic development offices in several counties to introduce his business concept and get advice about appropriate locations. “The officials steered us clear of areas already intended for future development, shared their GIS resources for programmatic search, and even identified local businesses that might benefit from our services,” says Walter.

Many property owners were wary of having a composting facility nearby. So Walter went door-to-door with his plans and photographs of similar facilities to assuage neighbors’ concerns. Still, the first location Walter wanted to buy fell through after a public hearing.

It took a year for him to find the 47 acres in Crimora where he eventually established Black Bear. The land was zoned agricultural, but required a special-use permit because commercial composting is not listed as an approved agricultural activity. The permit mandated a public hearing; despite Walter’s outreach, many people raised objections to the facility. Walter feared the panel of elected supervisors would not allow him to buy the land.

Then a director from the regional Department of Environmental Quality stepped forward to speak at the hearing. He addressed the concerns that had been raised and explained that his office would closely regulate the operations of the facility. If anything went wrong, his office would deal with it, the regulator said. “Had it not been for our regulator foreseeing the need to speak at this meeting, Black Bear Composting would never have had the opportunity to start,” says Walter.

Black Bear Composting had to start small; the facility was only big enough to process 2,800 tons per year. (That’s a lot of weight, but it’s not that much for a commercial operation—a “medium-sized” facility often processes 10,000 tons per year.) The tractor did double-duty as a loader and pulled a windrow turner. Walter kept equipment to a minimum and bought secondhand when he could. 

Instead of buying a watertight truck specially designed for composting, he decided to use 65-gallon wheeled carts that could be driven around in a stake body truck.

Now Walter just needed to find clients who wanted their organic waste hauled away. Because there weren’t any other local commercial composters, he had to start from scratch.

In October 2011, Black Bear Composting officially opened, but it had no clients, no organic waste to work with, and no finished compost to sell. Luckily, Walter got an out-of-the-blue call from the University of Virginia, which became his first big client. The university’s sustainability efforts have been lauded in the past few years as exemplary among American universities, and far more ambitious than the city’s own sustainability efforts. In 2011, the Board of Visitors made a commitment to several environmental goals, including responsible waste management—it seems that the UVA Office of Sustainability was waiting for a business like Walter’s to open.

The breaking point

Four years later, Black Bear Composting’s clients included two state universities, a college, three public school systems, several private schools, three hospitals, several restaurants and corporate offices, a couple grocery stores, a few local festivals, and a national park. The company also had a residential compost collection program whose popularity was growing by word of mouth. Black Bear Composting had a great reputation, and the company’s finished compost—rich soil that is excellent for growing plants—always sold out. Small farmers, home gardeners, and natural turf and lawn professionals were big fans.

The facility had composted more than 7,900 tons of material since its inception. About 50,000 students at the schools that Black Bear Composting served had learned about the ecological benefits of composting through the company’s outreach.

“Sounds great, right?” says Walter.

In reality, revenues often didn’t cover the company’s capital and operating expenses. His business, Walter realized, was really two businesses: a composting facility and a hauler. The facility side wasn’t profitable. There wasn’t enough organic waste; they weren’t even at the 2,800 tons-per-year capacity that the land could handle.

What had gone wrong? Charlottesville produces an estimated 90,000 tons of food waste per year, according to a 2010 waste characterization report created with a GIS tool at Virginia Tech. (That’s enough organic material to fill Black Bear’s facility more than 32 times.) Instead of going to Walter’s facility, some of that food waste went to feedlots. Grain from local micro-breweries went to cattle feedlots. National supermarket chains had contracts with large-scale haulers that brought organics to feedlots.

More importantly, disposing of waste in landfills is cheap and easy in Virginia. Local landfills are accessible and charge between $45 and $65 per ton. Black Bear Composting couldn’t undercut landfill pricing. “Virginia is the second largest garbage importing state,” says Walter. “Landfills are big business here.”

Most significant of all, there was little political will to make commercial composting economically viable in Virginia. Though localities have targets for recycling, there are no consequences for failing to meet those targets. Unlike many neighboring states, Virginia doesn’t even ban disposing of yard trimmings in landfills.

In December 2016, Black Bear Composting’s facility stopped accepting new organic material. Walter planned to stay open to sell finished compost until Memorial Day or until it sold out, whichever came first.

Rebirth

Walter told his clients that he would keep the hauling side of the business open for as long as he could. But he’d have to bring their organic materials farther away, which would be more expensive, and they’d have to pay other facilities—which had higher fees—to take the materials.

“We were in limbo for a year,” says Walter. He kept hauling for his core clients and brought their materials to transfer points that eventually sent organic waste to facilities in Lynchburg and Waverly. “That experience taught us our true costs. And it also taught us that some of our clients were willing to pay those higher prices because they believed in composting.”

It was through Walter’s core clients that he was able to reopen. He had to raise his prices, but his clients stuck by him. “It’s a one-day-at-a-time process,” says Walter. “I’m doing everything I can to keep costs down, be more efficient. Automate and optimize where I can.” But in many ways, the composting business requires the human touch. Composting is very susceptible to contamination and machines can’t sort through organic material.

These days, Walter likes his daily work. “I’m never in an office. I don’t even have one,” he says. “I’m on the road or at our facility or testing products or taking samples to labs or helping manage the windrows.” Walter often drives a truck and goes on a collection route. He likes talking to clients.

And what do Walter’s clients think? Mike Keenan, who founded The Juice Laundry, met Walter at the C’ville Eco Fair in 2013, before Keenan opened his first retail location. Because Keenan knew that composting services were available, he planned ahead to make certain that his business would be as sustainable as possible. “In addition to bottling all of our juices in reusable glass bottles, we use only plant-based, compostable cups and bowls for 100 percent of our smoothies, soups, and acai bowls,” says Keenan. “Absolutely critical for businesses that purchase and use compostable materials is having an industrial compost facility like Black Bear that can actually compost all of these items.”

Keenan partly attributes The Juice Laundry’s ability to be zero-waste to Black Bear Composting.

The City Market has a composting booth that Laurie Miller staffs for Black Bear Composting. “People who visit the compost booth are excited that the city offers this service,” says Miller.

Black Bear Composting’s residential clients number around 300 in Charlottesville, Staunton, Albemarle, and Augusta. The company has four employees, including Walter. It has three trucks, though Walter is looking to buy a new one, an industrial-sized truck with a watertight tank uniquely designed for organic material.

“Because organic waste is water-based, a lot of it disappears as you process it,” Walter says. At the facility, every ton of food waste needs to be mixed with two tons of wood chips or leaves. “Half of it is water, so it goes up into the air as steam. By the end, you only have 40 percent of it left as finished compost.” In the beginning, Walter thought that it might make sense to take the organic material for free and just charge for the finished product. “But the more realistic business model is to make sure that you can cover your expenses by charging for removal and processing,” he says. “Sale of the finished compost is profit, hopefully.”

Walter is upbeat—a surprise, considering the challenges of the past few years. “I feel strangely liberated by the near-death experience of the business,” he says. “I spent years being afraid of what would happen to our employees if we went under. It’s not a high profit margin business and it’s never is going to be.” But he was able to carry on even when the worst happened. “There are no guarantees. We do a good job. Our clients are fantastic. That’s pretty much all I can ask for.”

Crissanne Raymond developed an original veggie burger recipe more than 30 years ago in her hometown of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Riffing off of her mother’s lentil soup recipe, she built a burger from a lentil and barley base, flavored it with roasted vegetables and tamari, and used it to feed her growing family.

“Fast forward a few decades and five kids later, and she was living in Charlottesville and running her own catering business,” says Raymond’s daughter, Elizabeth. The family had long mused about a veggie burger enterprise, and after selling her stake in local catering company Glorious Foods, Raymond teamed up with daughters Elizabeth and Heather to launch NoBull Burger in 2011. The venture, like the burgers, began organically.

“Mom had experience installing a kitchen and getting it certified, so we set one up on East Market Street, and our first sales were at the farmer’s market,” recalls Elizabeth. “We had a grill, gave out samples, and sold sandwiches and two-packs. Those first sales gave us a spurt of affirmation that this was something we could really do.” Their younger brother came up with the name NoBull as a triple entendre—alluding to no meat, no nonsense, and the “noble” aspect of an organic, gourmet product.

Raymond, a UVA graduate, had waited tables downtown all through school and had restaurant contacts willing to put the burgers on the menu, where they garnered good reviews. “At the farmer’s market, we met the owners of Bodo’s as well as a coordinator of the Whole Foods local program, plus lots of local chefs, which were great connections,” she says. Bodo’s features a NoBull sandwich on its menu (tip: Topping it with a fried egg is a fan favorite).

From there, things picked up speed. The sisters went door-to-door with samples, placing NoBull in Rebecca’s Natural Food, Integral Yoga, Market Street Market, and in restaurants like The Nook and now-defunct Positively Fourth Street. “We took lots of sales trips to Richmond and D.C.,” says Raymond, “and by 2015 we had our burgers in 22 Whole Foods including Virginia Beach, northern Virginia, and Maryland.” Now their reach extends as far west as Colorado with an eye toward California markets.

The Raymonds attribute NoBull’s steady success to the product’s unique taste and purity. “Other veggie burgers are labeled vegan or vegetarian, but the ingredients are full of oils, fillers, additives, and unpronounceable things, and they taste like cardboard,” Raymond says. “With NoBull, you could go to the grocery store and buy our ingredients. Your grandma would know what they are.”

Having expanded from the original burger to three other flavors—mushroom and roasted garlic, spicy Italian, and tomato and spinach—NoBull is launching a fourth, Madras Curry, in January, along with updated branding and packaging. Raymond is proud of how far they’ve come. “We started 100 percent by ourselves, with no investors, and it has at times been a struggle,” she says. “But we’re resilient and resourceful women, and we really believe in what we’re doing.”

Entrepreneur and Max Boxxer founder Richard Crisler is a man for all seasons, but summer might suit him best.

His first business endeavor was Yo Wear, launched at Duke University when he was a student, which produced Duke- and fraternity-themed boxer shorts that sold on campus and through fraternal organization magazines. “After I graduated and moved to Charlottesville, I opened a shop on the mall [where the Spectacle Shop is now],” says Crisler, “and made all kinds of clothing.” He had to learn the retail storefront business on the fly, and as he puts it, “it was absolute torture.”

Seeking a more profitable path, he closed the shop after a year and pivoted to focus solely on selling colorful “vintage’ boxers and Hawaiian-style aloha shirts and tees via wholesale to retail stores and mail-order catalogs. “I had two boxer dogs, and man’s best friend and dependable clothing are both good connotations,” he says. His brand, dubbed Max Boxxer, moved to the head of the pack in 1988. The first 10 years boomed as sales grew to $1 million, with a staff of 13 who produced the garments in Crisler’s long, low-slung warehouse on River Road.

Like the weather, however, changes in the business climate are inevitable. “Due to market forces and just plain inexperience on my part, it all began to slow down,” says Crisler. When sales trailed off, finally crashing along with the 2008 market, Crisler pivoted again, this time to solar panel installation with a new venture called SunDay Solar, and Max Boxxer went dormant. “By 2010 we had given up the wholesale but kept the retail direct to consumers via catalogs,” he says. “We’ve kept some residual customers all along, and now we’re looking to revitalize our brand and improve our internet business.”

Enter Stephanie Lugus, a senior at Virginia Commonwealth University, fashion major, and Max Boxxer intern. “What Stephanie has done is to create a sense of organization on our website,” says Crisler, “where before it was a hodgepodge.” Earlier iterations allowed customers to order clothing à la carte, choosing any fabric/garment combination, and sizing was not always standardized across old and new lines.

Lugus, who has particular affinities for branding and digital marketing, tackled the problems at the root. “We went deeply into product development,” she says, “and figured out sizing that fits,” as opposed to the large, boxy styles that used to be en vogue. “Originally, the print collection was based on gift market and holiday wear, but now we have more of an everyday line, including lots of super fun boxers,” with themes from “jungle birds mix” to “spicy hot chilies” and many more.

“The original Boxxer mascot was based on drawings by Doug Payne that feature a very cool, collected, expat dog sporting a suit and top hat, but underneath he’s wearing fun boxers, and that’s what we want people to relate to,” says Lugus. The company is focused on revamping its online presence to streamline the consumer experience, boost marketing, and increase social media exposure. “One struggle is that we don’t yet have any analytics,” she says, “but once we start getting numbers from the new website, we can identify our buyers and go from there.”

The Max Boxxer crew is optimistic heading into the holidays, and plans to launch a women’s line in the spring. Unique selling points include combed cotton fibers, coconut buttons, and hand-stitching all done locally in an entirely solar-powered facility. “This building has 262 solar panels on it,” says Crisler of his production warehouse. “Even the A/C and heating are powered by the sun.” That seems fitting for Crisler, who likes life on the sunny side.

Years ago, Cynthia Chiles’ mom made hand-lettered fliers to let people know when to come pick apples from the family’s orchards. She took out a classified ad when fruit was ripe.

When Chiles took up a leadership role at Crown Orchard 15 years ago, she still did the marketing herself. “I have a degree in marketing. And I love doing it,” she says. “But eventually, I didn’t have time for it.”

Five years ago, Chiles approached The Ivy Group to work with her and her family business. “When we first met Cynthia, she had a vision of where she wanted the marketing to go and how the business could grow,” says Pam Fitzgerald, managing director of The Ivy Group. “Together, we envisioned a real partnership where we were all committed to the process.”

The first step was for The Ivy Group to learn about Crown Orchard. “We needed to understand what the business was like day-to-day to know its marketing needs. Only then could we create a strategy,” says Fitzgerald.

The marketing strategy would be based on a brand narrative, which Fitzgerald says is a promise to the customer of a certain kind of experience. “For a brand narrative to be successful, it must be authentic,” she says. “The stories we tell about a business and the lived experience of the customer have got to match. It’s a living, evolving story. When someone goes to one of the orchards, they create a memory of the experience, which becomes part of the brand narrative.”

The Crown Orchard brand narrative arose from “looking around the orchards and seeing what memories are being made today, as well as the story of the Chiles family,” says Fitzgerald. “We didn’t have to romanticize the story because it already had everything it needed. Five generations. The best memories of your childhood or of the childhood you wished you had.”

Fitzgerald, along with Franziska “Siska” Matiuk, Ivy Group brand and web manager, and Julia Prince, digital and content manager, oversaw a brand refresh that created a new look and feel for the brand. Working with Chiles, they decided what images best represented the Crown Orchard experience.

“We wanted images that evoked those peak moments that you remember forever,” says Matiuk. “The first bite of a fresh cider donut. Sitting on a picnic blanket watching the sun set over the mountains. Carrying a toddler on piggyback through the peach trees.” The Ivy Group team created a visual design program that would be consistent across media. They overhauled the website to make it interactive, responsive, and user-friendly.

Family is at the core of the orchard experience, so The Ivy Group team has kept the Chiles family front and center. Cynthia is the voice of the orchards on radio, Henry Chiles—as “Farmer Henry”—stars in video content, and Lizzy Chiles, one of the youngest members of the family and a millennial, is The Ivy Group’s marketing partner.

As part of developing their strategy, the Ivy Group team conducted customer research. “We needed to figure out who customers were and what they liked,” says Matiuk. “We segmented the customer base and did a personas exercise where we created abstract ‘customers’ to represent the different kinds of people who come to the orchards.” Parents bring their children, of course, but young professionals come, too. Students visit on dates. And empty nesters come to enjoy the view with a glass of wine. In other words, people experience the orchards in many different ways.

Personas have invented back-stories, day-to-day lives, preferences, and opinions that allow the creative team to imagine what experiences would appeal to them.

“In the office, we’d talk about what kind of concert ‘Barbara,’ the empty nester, would enjoy. Or we’d ask what ‘Tyler,’ the young professional, cares about,” says Prince.

The Ivy Group gathered data for two years. The research confirmed many of Cynthia Chiles’ ideas about who her customers were. “It was fascinating to see the personas come to life and to have analytics to confirm that we are moving in the right direction,” says Chiles.

Chiles says that working successfully with an agency requires building a relationship of trust. Fitzgerald agrees.

“The agency-client relationship often starts small,” says Fitzgerald. “It’s like a courtship in the beginning, testing things out, learning about each other. Later, it’s more like a marriage; there is give and take. We can pick up the slack when needed. The relationship grows with you.”

For instance, Chiles isn’t a “big social media person,” she says. Instead, the team at Ivy Group keeps up with the online platforms so that Chiles can keep up with the changes at the orchards. But the relationship is close; Chiles talks or emails with the Ivy team almost every day.

“Ultimately, what we are doing is framing the saga of Cynthia and her family,” says Fitzgerald, “a great story that was always there.”

There are more 1099 contractors in the workforce than ever before and their numbers continue to rise.

The term “1099” comes from a series of IRS documents that are designed to report income received outside of salaried employment. This can include investment returns, tax refunds, and income made as an independent contractor or freelancer.

The first thing to understand is that a 1099 contractor will most likely receive a smaller percentage of her paycheck as “take home” than a W2 employee. One major reason for the difference is that 1099 contractors often have to pay more for medical coverage, while W2 employees are oftentimes covered on their corporate health plan.

Another sizable hit that a 1099 contractor takes on her income comes from the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or FICA. FICA consists of a payment for Social Security at 12.4 percent and a payment for Medicare at 2.9 percent. A W2 employee splits the cost of FICA with their employer, each paying 6.2 percent for Social Security and 1.45 percent for Medicare. An independent contractor, on the other hand, has to pay both sides of FICA as there is no employer to share the cost. This can really add up. In rough numbers, a person making $75,000 per year would have to pay almost $11,500 as an independent contractor in FICA alone, compared to just under $5,750 as a W2 salaried employee.

Independent contractors can also have a more difficult time saving for retirement. Similar to health insurance, there are advantages to being in a big “pool” when it comes to retirement. The primary disadvantage a 1099 contractor faces is the type of investment vehicles available. Many salaried employees have access to a 401(k) (or a similar retirement savings vehicle) through their company. Many of these plans encourage automatic contributions to be made directly from an individual’s paycheck, and some companies even incentivize those contributions through matching initiatives. Once again, the 1099 contractor has to go at it alone. The good news here is that independent contractors have access to several different types of retirement plans, and there is usually one that is a good fit for just about anyone. That said, the burden of finding a plan, and taking advantage of it once it is set up, lies with the individual.

David Posner is local investment executive specializing in utilizing socially responsible options for long-term financial goals.