Winkler program hatching success

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This article was published 28/11/2009 (5971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINKLER — When Betty Funk was last profiled in these pages, she was sewing used seatbelts into purses in her Morden home basement.

Two years later, she operates a sewing factory that employs seven people doing piece work for seatbelt purse company USED (Unlimited Supplies from Everyone’s Discards), which she runs with son, Trevor Kehler.

She thanks Winkler’s Incubator Mall, an innovative program that helps prospective entrepreneurs get started in the real business world.

"The Incubator Mall takes away the fear of trying (to start a business). It’s an awesome opportunity," said Funk, whose USED company became a tenant earlier this year. USED also makes beach bags, school bags, tote bags and backpacks, all from nylon belts salvaged from auto wreckers.

"I was looking to rent buildings that charge $1,500 a month. Now I pay $480 a month, and then it goes up by $100 a month next year, and by another $100 a month the third year," Funk said.

After that, you’re supposed to have had enough warmth and mollycoddling in the municipal "nest" and "hatch" — move out on your own.

However, you can continue at the Incubator Mall for an extra year if still not ready.

The City of Winkler has not tabulated how many jobs have been created since the Incubator Mall started seven years ago, but officials said it’s probably in the hundreds already.

A program that provides cheap rent may not sound so ingenious, but start-up costs are always huge with a new company, said Walter Siemens, who headed up Winkler Economic Development Corp. when it launched the Incubator Mall.

"It was one thing to get bank financing. The problem companies always ran into is they didn’t have affordable space," Siemens said.

Mattias Steiger, who emigrated from Hamburg, Germany, five years ago, recently graduated from the Incubator Mall to his own facility on Cargill Road in Winkler’s Industrial Park. Steiger runs ST Granite and Marble, which makes and installs countertops. He now has four full-time employees.

One of the advantages of the Incubator Mall is it has a three-phase power source so Steiger could operate big machinery needed for his business.

"It’s hard to start a business like this. If you don’t have the money to spend $100,000 on machinery and $200,000 for a building, it won’t happen without something like the Incubator Mall," he said.

The city’s economic development corporation put up $200,000 for the building. It operates at break-even. The building supports five tenants at a time. Incubator rent is typically from 30 to 50 per cent of what a fledgling company would pay in commercial rent, said George Klassen, chairman of the development board.

From 30 to 40 companies have gone through the Incubator Mall so far, and "as far as I know, only one or two companies haven’t gone on to bigger things," Klassen said. It does not rent to retail companies because that would provide an unfair advantage over local competition and only redistribute wealth.

Morden is now planning to start a similar program for new companies.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca