The Shipley Center for Innovation at Clarkson University is an entrepreneurial support hub that provides students and local innovators with services that can help transform business ideas into real companies. Whether it be prototyping, patent filing, customer development, marketing, funding, connecting with investors or incorporating, the Shipley Center’s resources help students launch businesses with the potential for great success or even full-time work after graduation. Thanks to an arrangement between St. Lawrence University and Clarkson, SLU students have free access to the Shipley Center — an opportunity that is relatively unknown across campus.
The Shipley Center for Innovation is located in Bertrand H. Snell Hall at Clarkson University
Image Credit: Glassdoor
SLU Director of Career Connections Geoffrey Falen has been a liaison between the Shipley Center and SLU over the past few years and refers student entrepreneurs to the center. He believes that this connection formed between the schools due to a lack of entrepreneurial resources at SLU.
“I suspect it was recognizing a need or an interest in St. Lawrence students to pursue these kinds of activities and not having, maybe some of the resources, the expertise, or the personnel necessarily on campus to be able to do a credible job with that,” he said.
According to Falen, an average of two to five SLU students or student groups use the center every year for marketing advice, business advice, technical support, or pitch competitions. “[W]e have had a number of St. Lawrence companies and ideas that have done actually very well in the tech sector in the last few years,” he said.
One of those students was SLU Class of 2018 “OffWeGo” Co-Founder and Head of Product Duff Archie. Archie and his friend got the idea for the company during their freshman year of college when they realized that they could match students traveling to the same destinations for vacations to access cheaper group rates and other benefits over individual tickets.
“That was the idea for almost all of college, including when we were at the Shipley center. [I]n that time, Shipley was ‘Entrepreneurship 101’ for us. SLU doesn’t have an Entrepreneurship 101 class, how to create a business plan, how to create a pitch deck, a business model canvas, you name it. That was Shipley […] for us,” Archie said.
Archie now works full time on the company and said it has significantly grown since the beginning of this year. “The pandemic really put a huge halt on things. However, I would say ever since the beginning of this year, since January ’21, we have seen a drastic increase in inbound leads, inbound marketing and organic growth,” Archie said.
Charles R. ’84 and Lucia Shipley generously helped establish the Shipley Center
Image Credit: Clarkson University
Clarkson Graduate Innovation Fellows Maura Maguire and Mia Petrone help students, faculty, staff and North Country community members achieve similar successes at the Shipley Center every week. Immediately upon entry, the space is littered with elements of the entrepreneurial process: whiteboards filled with project ideas, lists of upcoming deliverables, books on business start-up strategy, and more.
Maguire, who started two companies through the center during her undergrad, explained how Shipley is partially funded by both Clarkson and the “New York State Hot Spot Program.” “[W]e take the funds and the support from the hot spot program and use it to support entrepreneurs and innovators throughout the North Country. [I]t includes things like business model development, setting up an LLC, finding investment and funding, marketing strategy, prototyping, filing a provisional patent if you want to protect your idea, and lots more,” Maguire said.
Petrone added that Shipley’s grant programs and pitch competitions are a great source of funding for students who take advantage of these opportunities. “We definitely recommend it if you are looking for a main source of funding. That’s the one we push and drive. But along with that, we do a lot of help with your application, […] getting you prepared, working on your presentation, your pitch, all of that stuff — we are more than welcome to sit down with you and […] make sure you are prepared and going to do the best you possibly can,” she said.
These business opportunities are available to any St. Lawrence students at no extra cost and remain available after graduation. “The best thing to do is just reach out to our center. Tell us what you’re up to, where you’re at and what you need for help,” Maguire said.