The Business Incubator at The George Officially Opens with Name and Brand
November 11, 2014
SPARTANBURG, SC – The Business Incubator at The George will host Business After Hours on Tuesday, November 11 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. and use that opportunity as an official opening and to announce its name and brand to the Spartanburg community. The GreenHouse Business Incubator at the George, USC Upstate, is the official name selected for the entity. It will regularly be referred to as the GreenHouse. Its logo represents the different participating businesses working together in the peer-focused leadership programming offered at the GreenHouse. The companies regularly advise, critique and support each other in both formalized and informal activities as they focus on customer needs and getting to market.
USC Upstate students in The STUDIO, an in-house, student-run design firm for GreenHouse clients, small businesses and local non-profits, developed the logo and tagline after extensive research and testing. The brand signifies collaboration amongst individual businesses, growth and innovation, a home where new ventures and new ideas will be nurtured so they will grow and thrive, and is a nod to the University’s official green color scheme
“The GreenHouse is more than a location for new businesses; it provides an important piece of our region’s growing ecosystem of support for entrepreneurship to incubate and grow,” said Erin Ouzts, director of the GreenHouse. “The image of the GreenHouse supporting others as they fit together captures the vision of building a more economically healthy Spartanburg, growing more jobs locally and increasing the community’s perception that new and exciting things can be accomplished in Spartanburg.”
Housed on the 3rd floor of the George Dean Johnson, Jr. College of Business and Economics at USC Upstate, the GreenHouse provides programming to knowledge-based innovators with proven concepts who are ready to build their company’s infrastructure and systems as they go to market. Programming focuses on leadership and communication skills development while providing support for customer identification, acquisition and needs understanding. Programming also covers building strong functional areas of their business. The activities are peer-driven and oriented.
According to Ouzts, the GreenHouse is currently home to three in-house companies and three affiliates, approximately 18 people plus contractors and student interns. Two companies are revenue-producing. All of the companies are Internet- or software-based; three have either patents or patents pending, with one considering protection for its intellectual property.
The George is located at 160 East St. John Street, Spartanburg. For more information, contact Erin Ouzts at eouzts@uscupstate.edu.
