Scale Up Milwaukee, a multi-stakeholder effort helping support entrepreneurs at all stages to grow their ventures by stimulating a strong regional entrepreneurship ecosystem, today announced it is accepting applications for the second class of its Scalerator program – an innovative training designed to teach ambitious, local companies how to maximize their growth potential.

Following the success of the pilot program that saw 12 diverse Milwaukee ventures accelerate growth by close to 25%, the second Scalerator will comprise a larger group of ventures and will take place over a 6-month period during which participants will take a deep dive into topics like sales and marketing, entrepreneurial finance, organizational structure and human resources. The Scalerator will systematically work with regional investors, banks, universities, and public sector stakeholders, to support the growth in various ways.

“Over the last year, we’ve confirmed that this region is filled with growth-minded businesses that have enormous potential to scale and ultimately boost the Milwaukee community,” said Daniel Isenberg, Professor of Entrepreneurship Practice at Babson Executive Education and architect and facilitator of Scale Up Milwaukee efforts. “We’re looking forward to working with a new group of ambitious entrepreneurs and equipping them with practical skills that they can use to rapidly accelerate their growth.”

Training will be administered by a team of professors from Babson College and will span from October 2014 through March 2015, with one full-day and one half-day session per month.

Meet the Experts:

• Daniel Isenberg , leader of Scale Up Milwaukee, Babson Executive Education professor of entrepreneurship practice and the founding executive director of the Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project (BEEP)
• Mary Gale, Babson faculty and expert on entrepreneurial operations and finance
• Elaine Eisenman, Dean of Executive Education at Babson College
• Vincent Onyemah, Professor of Sales and Marketing at Babson College

Interested businesses should have a strong ambition to grow and a scalable business model with annual revenues between $500,000 and $5 million. Businesses should also have an established leadership team that holds significant ownership of the company. Applications are available online at www.scaleupmilwaukee.org/scalerator2014.

Pilot Scalerator Class Continuing Momentum

The dozen participants of the pilot Scalerator program self-reported that 2014 revenues are projected to increase an average of 25% over their projected 2014 revenues as a result of the training.  The reasons for the new growth included obtaining new financing, growing existing accounts, cross-selling existing customers and expanding operations to support additional customers.

“The impact of having leaders from the business community, financial community, investors, educators and civic leaders working together illustrates how companies like mine can help a community grow – and how the community can help companies like mine grow in time frames of weeks and months,” said Bill Reilly, owner of Hands On Garage and a Scalerator participant. “In fact, as a direct result of the Scalerator program, Hands-on Garage increased our fourth quarter 2013 revenues by 15%. With that extra 15%, we made an equipment investment that is already adding revenue to our bottom line.”