WASHINGTON — Every year at South by Southwest, the Washington, D.C., Economic Partnership leaves its imprint on Austin, Texas, by playing host at the WeDC House.
A venue for special events, parties and showcase activities, the WeDC House also serves as a place where people can relax, unwind and recharge from the intensity and excitement of the five-day interactive festival.
Featured at the WeDC House is the D.C. Startup Showcase, which connects new and emerging companies with potential investors, analysts and D.C., decision makers in a creative, welcoming forum that demonstrates the active, vibrant and constantly evolving nature of entrepreneurship in the nation’s capital.
More than 20 featured companies attend events at the WeDC House — and right in the middle sits the Halcyon Incubator.
Based in an 18th-century Georgetown mansion, the fellowship program is designed to equip early stage social entrepreneurs with all the tools they need to get their promising ventures off the ground.
At South by Southwest, the Halcyon Incubator demonstrates, firsthand, the tangible benefits that their program offers to budding startups, presenting five ventures that have either graduated or that will soon graduate from the program.
“Our mission is to support social entrepreneurs who are building businesses that are sustainable financially while creating a positive impact in their local and global communities,” said Mike Malloy, program coordinator for the Halcyon Incubator.
“Over the past three years, we’ve had more than 45 companies come through the program across all different industries,” he said, “everything from taking ugly fruits and vegetables and cold pressing them into delicious Misfit Juice to growing coral 50 times faster and planting it back into the ocean to rebuild reefs.”
The incubator selects eight companies each year from among a candidate pool that can number well into the hundreds, Malloy said. After selecting the winners, their founders relocate to D.C. to live and work in the Halcyon House, 3400 Prospect St. NW.
There, they get the rare opportunity to advance their program from concept to fruition.
“The venture can be anything from an idea to an ‘MVP’ — a minimally viable product,” Malloy said. “We’re really looking for that early stage venture, and we provide resources to help them develop while they’re here at Halcyon.”
In addition to housing the founders for five months, the incubator also provides a $10,000 stipend.
“This allows our fellows to have money for food and clothes,” Malloy said. “Once you have your basic needs covered, you can focus higher up the pyramid … to build a venture that’s going to have a positive impact on the world.”
According to one recent graduate, the program works.
“The Halcyon Incubator was a wonderful experience for a company like ours,” said Carey Anne Nadeau, founder and CEO of Open Data Nation, a woman-owned D.C. business that takes municipal data and public health records and predicts where the next great risk to public health and safety are likely to occur.
Having recently graduated from the incubator program, Data Nation opened their own offices and added their first male employee to expand their staff to six.
“Halcyon deserves a great deal of credit for helping us launch our company,” Nadeau said. “To be surrounded by the culture of D.C. entrepreneurs — women-owned businesses, small businesses and those that are coming into their seed stage like we are — was just an incredible experience.
“And hey, we also got to live in a beautiful mansion.”
Applications for Halcyon’s next fellowship program are now open through May 4, with the accepted startups announced later this year.
But there’s more to Halcyon than just the incubator program.
Developed by founders Sachiko Kuno and Kate Goodall through the success and evolution of the S&R Foundation, Halcyon spun off into its own independent nonprofit just last month. In addition to the incubator, the organization also operates Halcyon Arts Lab, Halcyon Stage and Halcyon Dialogue, programs that all foster and catalyze creativity in their respective fields.
Regardless of whether the programs focus on entrepreneurship or the arts, one thing is clear: Halcyon has formed a powerful hub where socially engaged creatives can collaborate and experiment in a safe and thought-provoking environment.
Steve Winter and Kenny Fried are WTOP contributors who work for Brotman|Winter|Fried, a Sage Communications Company.
