From desks to offices and coaching to mentorship, VentureLink is the home for entrepreneurship and innovation in Northern New Jersey. With 110,000 square feet of usable space, VentureLink is the largest startup incubator in New Jersey.
VentureLink houses three options to support entrepreneurs of all types: the brand-new coworking floor, private office and growth floors, and wet lab and sciences floor.
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Dubbed as the “Physical Home of Entrepreneurship at NJIT,” VentureLink hosts a number of programs for both student and community entrepreneurs. The building is home to four distinct programs of which members can take advantage.
In addition to the private office space, the recently renovated first floor is home to an 11,500-square-foot, modular, open-desk coworking space. The program can support offices for any size of early to growing team.
Learning the Entrepreneurial Core: LinkUps Workshops
The heart of the programming at VentureLink is the LinkUps Workshop series. Including topics such as “Building Your First Sales Plan” and “How to Shop For a Lawyer,” the 15-20 workshops held per year teach budding entrepreneurs how to start and how to build their company.
This workshop series is free and open to the public. Anyone in the area can join and learn how to start their own venture.
Open Coffee Club: Professional Networking
On the first Wednesday of the month, VentureLink hosts Open Coffee Club – Newark. The concept was created and open sourced by Saul Klein, venture capitalist and co-founder of Skype. In this relaxed and social environment, people make the professional connections that are vital to all entrepreneurial pursuits.
Open Coffee Club – Newark is co-hosted with the Brick City Meetup and has seen angel investors, vendors, students, professors, venture capitalists and technologists all interact over coffee and bagels.
Jose Espinoza, an NJIT information technology alumnus, is CEO of Big Magic Inc., a health-technology company that helps health care practitioners polish their online presence. He appreciated the networking afforded to him through Open Coffee Club. “I met an investor here that introduced me to other relationships that have helped push our business forward,” he said, adding that he liked getting together with other tech-ecosystem stakeholders with similar interests.
Making Connections: Social Series
One of the most important benefits of startup incubators is the connections entrepreneurs make with each other. VentureLink sponsors a number of events throughout the year to build the connections among the founders-in-residence.
These social events are always changing. Some of the highlights include Food Truck Fridays, Founder’s Happy Hour and Entrepreneur’s Lunch.
Our brand-new kitchen-lounge space was designed specifically to support and encourage the natural interactions that make startup incubators great.
John Vito d’Antonio-Bertagnolli, another NJIT alumnus and CEO of Oculmotor Technologies, a vision therapy technology company, says that Making Connections: Social Series is “far and away the most useful startup-oriented event that I’ve ever attended. It’s a chance to meet fellow entrepreneurs, who all have incredibly rich and varied experiences, and discuss you and your startup, as well as them and theirs. We’re all going through the same growing pains, andit is invaluable to be able to commiserate with and ask for advice from people who are in the same boat as you.”
Entrepreneurs to Experts: Mentorship Program
No one starts alone. VentureLink manages a robust mentorship program to ensure every entrepreneur gets the support he or she needs. Supplied with seasoned entrepreneurs and industry mentors alike, the VentureLink mentorship program connects founders with the advice that will lead them to success.
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