Grow Detroit | Powering the growth of Detroit. Features a collection of blogs from Detroit business and community leaders.

February 15, 2012

Health Company Seeks to Add 1000 Employees to Detroit’s Workforce

Visalus Sciences is expanding their presence in Troy, Michigan, and is looking to add 1,000 employees to it’s workforce.

Ryan Blair, the company’s CEO, is an entrepreneur and the author of “Nothing To Lose, Everything To Gain.” In his book, he talks about his struggles growing up, and his journey from gang member to a successful entrepreneur and multimillionaire investor.

Blair founded his first company, 24/7 Tech, at the age of 21 and has founded and sold numerous businesses since, including SkyPipeline – a Southern California-based provider of wireless broadband.

His latest success has been the overhaul of Visalus Sciences. Visalus is a manufacturer of weight loss and nutrition products, and is the company behind the Body by Vi Challenge, a national weight loss challenge. Just this past Monday, Visalus generated national media interest when it announced the acquisition of some pricy web domains.

Via Techcrunch:

We’ve learned that ViSalus Sciences, a direct sales “health transformation company” that distributes weight management and nutritional supplement products, has entered the shortlist of pricey domain name buyers. The creators of the so-called “Body By Vi Challenge,” which (among other things) is a 90-day contest that offers people health products, support, and cash prizes in an effort to incentivize them to achieve their weight loss and fitness goals, announced today that it has acquired “challenge.com” and “vi.com.”

Together, the domain names were purchased by ViSalus for $500,000 and $325,000, respectively. The purchase of “challenge.com” alone is one of the top ten most expensive domain names bought in 2011, through today. At a combined value of $825,000, the two domains together would be the fourth highest purchase over that time, and individually “challenge.com” and “vi.com” are the second and third most expensive buys of domain names this year, behind only the million-dollar “dudu.com.”

Those in Detroit have the opportunity to hear from Ryan Blair this Friday evening at Startup Weekend Detroit, as he and Benzinga founder Jason Raznick kick off the weekend event.
Via WXYZ:

February 15, 2012

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Detroit’s UBI Video Joins NewME Accelerator Program

As featured in this Techcrunch writeup over the weekend, Detroit-based UBI Video will join six other startups that will comprise the second class of the NewME accelerator program, located in San Francisco.

NewME was launched last year to support minority entrepreneurs, and UBI was one of over 300 applicants vying for entry into the incubator program.

UBI founder James Norman isn’t the first Detroiter to make it into NewMe, Detroit’s Hajj Flemings was a participant in NewME’s inaugural class last year. If the name NewME rings a bell somewhere, it’s likely because the incubator gained a massive amount of exposure on CNN late last year, via a program called Black in America. The program gained scrutiny in the Tech community after technology writer Michael Arrington claimed in a interview (seen here) that he didn’t know ‘a single black entrepreneur’. (Arrington later reacted in kind on his blog.)

However, beyond any past controversy, NewME offers tremdendous opportunity for Minority-led startups. Their advisory board is comprised of industry heavyweights like Vivek Wadhwa, Hiten Shah, and Chris Hutchins.

We recently caught up with Norman to find out more…

What made NewME your choice over incubators like Techstars and YCombinator?

After spending two years applying to incubators, late last year I finally began to get close. This season, it was between TechStars Boston and NewME. While we hadn’t heard anything from NewME before the end of last year, TechStars had a call with us. Ultimately, we didn’t make the cut for whatever reason.

Coming into 2012, I was convinced that I would divert any focus I gave to incubators, and begin to dwell on revenue as opposed to fund raising. Then out of nowhere we got accepted. I’d say it took me 24 hours, (and calls to a couple of the program mentors I had met previously), before I realized I needed to take this opportunity and run with it.

What really drove me to make the decision was that I hadn’t got enough bad feedback in Detroit. Despite all the fanfare post beta launch, only half of the people who said they loved it actually logged in. The start-up community here isn’t yet built to push companies to rapid growth, or rapid failure. Startups tend to float sideways in Michigan, maybe making some revenue but hardly ever going national/global without leveraging networks outside of the state. This is why I think something like Grow Detroit is important. By building the knowledge and community amongst like minded entrepreneurs, I think we’re headed in the right direction here in Detroit. It just takes time.

Til then, I need to quickly find out if my company will be a lasting entity or fly by night. Of course, I believe the former, but the best way to know is go to the Valley.

What do you hope to gain from your time at NewME?

Having a group of experienced VCs and start-up CEOs critique your product / team is the fastest way to know what direction to take your company if you ask me. For example, if every VC tells you they would never invest in your product, and you need capital to move forward, it might be time to rethink your strategy (or take out a bunch of credit cards to prove them wrong haha). I’m excited to grow my network in the start-up community, put my product to the test to get direct feedback and …lets not lie…it’s cold in the D right now haha, getting away from the snow for a bit is great too.