What's Happening in Youngstown, OH…

The business incubator in Youngstown has been named the best in the world by a Swedish-based research group.

A business incubator is an organization that helps entrepreneurs who are starting out to succeed in growing their business ventures. It provides support of various kinds, including office space, networking, coaching, and capital.

The Youngstown Business Incubator is based at Youngstown State University, and beat out hundreds of others, including those in cities like Boston, London, and Beijing, to attain the ranking, which comes from the University Business Incubator Index in Stockholm. The organization declared Youngstown as the winner based on a number of factors, including the sales figures of the startups the incubator has helped, and its record of job creation.

Jim Cossler, CEO of the incubator, says the Stockholm organization was impressed that such success stories came from a small city with a depressed economy.

The Youngstown Business Incubator is one of the few in the world based at a university that allows a young company to remain on campus after it has begun to have some commercial success. Most other incubators send the companies out on their own, where failure is more likely. Cossler also notes that the ranking has drawn a lot of attention to Youngstown.

The incubator could work with brochure printers to create a booklet that describes its mission, ranking, and the assistance it can offer young entrepreneurs.