When: May 23, 2012 | 5:00pm
Where: Fox Theatre, Oakland

On May 23rd, 2012, ICA is going ALL IN for Bay Area entrepreneurs.

Thanks to the generous support of The City of Oakland and Friends of The Oakland Fox, The 8 Factors, the East Bay Community Foundation, Chevron, Wells Fargo and Visa, ICA is excited to host its ALL IN 2012 event at the historic Oakland Fox Theater. This venue not only symbolizes the revival of a Bay Area landmark, but it also allows us to host a larger, more diverse community of people and businesses to celebrate entrepreneurs, their equitable growth and ICA’s impact on Bay Area job creation.

This year’s Keynote Speaker will be Michael C. Bush, President of 8 Factors. 8 Factors is a proven, action-oriented framework for entrepreneurs and small business owners that combines real world experience with distilled MBA knowledge. As president and founder of 8 Factors, Michael has more than 30 years experience as an entrepreneur, educator and business turn-around consultant. Since developing the 8 Factors framework over 10 years ago, Michael has taught the curriculum to over 1000 of successful entrepreneurs and small business owners.

8 Factors – Meet Michael C. Bush from 8 Factors on Vimeo.

Through his service on the Board of Inner City Advisors, Michael has presented at numerous business improvement and education events as well as providing pro-bono advisory services and operational improvement consulting to over 300 small business owners. Additionally, Michael was instrumental in establishing a ground-breaking private equity fund that targets job-creating inner city entrepreneurs.

Past Keynote Speakers have included Kristin Richmond and Kirsten Tobey (Co-Founders, Revolution Foods), Gary Erickson (Founder, Clif Bar & Co.), David Neeleman (CEO of JetBlue), Chip Conley (CEO, Joie de Vivre Hospitality), Michael Fields (CEO, Kana Software), Jim Harris (CEO, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker), and George Zimmer (CEO, The Men’s Wearhouse), among others.

We have big plans in store for Bay Area entrepreneurs this year. We’ll update you with more details soon.

Thank you for your continued support of the ICA mission to create good jobs and equity for inner city residents.

ICA Education Company Inka Biospheric Systems unites the science and technology of hydroponics and aquaponics with the artistry of fabrication to create water-wise and energy efficient vertical growing systems. They were recently highlighted in California Home + Design Magazine while recognizing their 2012 Award Winner for Sustainable Architecture. Inka played a significant role in the success of this award winning project, and were distinguished to be the only sub-contractor directly acknowledged in this piece.

ICA is really pleased to see Inka’s outstanding work being recognized. See their praise from California Home + Design below, and click the image for the full article. Congratulations to Inka Biospheric Systems for their continued success!

“But the most showstopping element is the living wall. Inka Biospheric Systems custom designed a ventilation system beneath the vegetation that forces air in and out through the wall, amping up the natural process of carbon dioxide filtering and making fresh air an unlikely new company perk.”

Perhaps one of the most unique aspects of this cutting-edge micro-roaster of organic and shade-grown coffee, is Freeman’s visionary eye for identifying real estate with distinctive architectural elements that possess the potential to revitalize and awaken the local community, inspire people to venture out and explore the possibilities of a new day, a new beginning — just like a great cup of coffee. The Blue Bottle Coffee Company has not only revitalized and invested in otherwise forgotten inner city neighborhoods, but has created new career opportunities and jobs for over 60 local residents to date — a perfect blend for Inner City Advisors (ICA).

The Blue Bottle Coffee Company first met ICA in 2007 with an array of business needs that were a reflection of their rapid growth, as well as Freeman’s desire to tap into external business expertise that would provide additional advice and guidance to enable his thriving enterprise go to the next level:

- Manage the increase of human resources and operational need
- Increase efficiency with cash-flow management
- Identify and raise additional capital to fund growth

The relationship between The Blue Bottle Coffee Company and an ICA Advisor started with a detailed review of their profit & loss statement and accounting practices. The support didn’t stop there. The ICA Advisor also provided guidance and direction in the areas of finance, human resource management and operations. Most importantly, the ICA Advisor introduced Freeman to an investor who would eagerly fund their much needed and desired expansion – thus resulting in the opening of the new production facility and the creation of 35 new jobs.

Today, The Blue Bottle Coffee Company is proudly serving their java loving customers in 8 locations across the East Bay, San Francisco and in New York, with almost 200 employees. Like the 17th century Franz George Kolshitsky’s The Blue Bottle coffee house —- The Blue Bottle Coffee Company is transforming history one cup at a time.

Blue Bottle Aims to Blend Slow Coffee, Fast Growth
By IAN SHERR, Wall Street Journal

In an era of fast-food cappuccinos and drive-through coffee shops, Blue Bottle Coffee Co. is banking on slowing things down to help itself grow.

Annie Tritt for The Wall Street Journal
Blue Bottle Coffee CEO James Freeman, center, and employees taste coffee at his facility in Oakland.

Since the Oakland-based coffee company’s founding in 2002, its revenue has jumped an average of about 50% annually to between $15 million and $20 million last year, according to James Freeman, founder and chief executive. As the company continues to expand—with plans to enter Manhattan in the next month of so—Blue Bottle could have more than 200 employees by the end of this year, up from about 70 two years ago.

Blue Bottle’s concept is slow coffee, an unusual offering in today’s coffee-retail industry. Brewing a cup of Blue Bottle coffee is a laborious process that can take up to five minutes, including the time it takes a barista to grind the beans and pour the grounds into a filter suspended above a cup before water is added on top.

The process takes substantially more time than it does to get a typical cup of coffee from shops like Starbucks, raising questions about how many customers would be willing to wait for a cup of joe from Blue Bottle and whether they can taste the difference.

But so far, this slow style—which Mr. Freeman says has become popular in Britain in recent years—has helped Blue Bottle and rival Bay Area practitioners of the art, like Ritual Coffee Roasters, develop a devoted customer base.

“It’s really excellent” coffee, says Jayn Pettingill, a local 48-year-old musician and music librarian. She says she buys only Blue Bottle beans for coffee at home because the company delivers the most consistent good taste she can find.

Still, Blue Bottle faces the usual limitations of an artisan food business. Its coffee is pricey, with a standard 12-ounce cup costing about a dollar more than the roughly $1.65 charged at Starbucks.

Alexander Slagle, an analyst at Jefferies & Co., says customers who would switch to higher-end coffee from Starbucks-type shops are mostly found in cities like San Francisco, New York and Chicago. “I don’t expect to go to other markets very quickly,” he says.

This is borne out by Starbucks’s own version of slow coffee, which it makes with a machine it calls Clover. In the four years since Starbucks acquired the machine’s technology, it has rolled out the device to more than 200 of its stores.

“It’s about being deliberate about where we offer the Clover brewing system,” said Marianne Duong, a Starbucks spokeswoman, who added that a 12-ounce cup starts at $2.95, a little more than Blue Bottle’s price. “We want to make sure it’s in the right store, and that customers are asking for it.”

Mr. Freeman, a native of Northern California who began Blue Bottle after he “washed out” of playing the clarinet in local symphonies, began serving his first cups of slow coffee at a local farmers’ market in 2002, relying on a small batch roaster for his beans. Blue Bottle’s name is an homage to Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, who became a hero in Vienna in the 17th century for his role in fending off an invasion by the Ottoman Empire. He used the money he was given for helping save Vienna to open a coffee shop whose name roughly translates to “House to the Blue Bottle.”

Mr. Freeman, now 45 years old, spent nearly $40,000 to start his business in 2002; lines at the farmers’ market began forming a couple of years later. “One day, I looked up and there were 15 people in line,” says Mr. Freeman, who has made organic bean blends sourced from such far-flung places as Sumatra, Indonesia, Panama and Hawaii. “It’s been like that ever since.”

Blue Bottle opened its first retail location, a kiosk in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, in 2005. The company has now opened a total of seven cafes and kiosks around San Francisco, Oakland and Brooklyn, N.Y. In 2008, the company took on an equity investment of more than $1 million to help fuel its growth.

The company has been striking wholesale agreements with places like cafes and bookstores, and now has between 150 and 200 such deals, roughly double from two years ago.

Blue Bottle rigorously trains its new recruits. New employees go through two to three weeks of training to learn how to expertly make espresso, pour coffee and mix the right amount of milk with their drink. Then the java rookies work and shadow employees on the job before performing in front of a “jury” of Blue Bottle employees to ensure they understand how to properly make and serve coffee.

Baristas at partner cafes go through training with Blue Bottle as well. Sarah Rosedale, a manager at Readers Café & Bookstore in San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, says Blue Bottle extensively trained her employees to serve coffee the right way. In the two years since the nonprofit bookstore opened its cafe, coffee has grown to represent three-quarters of its sales, with some of the proceeds supporting local libraries.

“It’s the artisan coffee in demand,” Ms. Rosedale says.

Mr. Freeman says the company is also now developing a bottled coffee drink that can be sold in grocery stores. Blue Bottle has been testing it in various locations but is still tweaking the recipe and hasn’t set a target date for an official launch. “Our first priority is to make a delicious product,” he says.

Write to Ian Sherr at ian.sherr@dowjones.com

Read the article below:

SFoodie
The American Eatery Makes Deliciousness From Every Part of the Beast
By Ben Narasin

If you’re a hardcore foodie –and why else would you be reading this?– it’s likely crossed your mind that the French, and most old world cuisine extremists, don’t waste any part of the animals they butcher. And they make it glorious while they’re at it. Tête de veau comes to mind (pun intended).

Prather Ranch takes the same approach, and delivers similarly exceptional, if more rustic, results in its American Eatery restaurant adjacent to its new butcher shop digs in the Ferry Building.

To Doug Stonebreaker, Prather’s founder, the Eatery is a natural extension to his approach to butchery. “I always thought this would be our model,” he says, “an integrated, whole-animal approach.”

Indeed, Prather Ranch deals with every part of the animal, unlike many modern day butchers and markets that just order in a case of rib eye. Most customers tend to order the most familiar cuts, so some perfectly good meat remains hard to move. Enter the Eatery, where Prather’s butcher shop feeds the menu.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

LIKE Prather Ranch Meat Co. on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pratherranchmeatcompany

“For the first time, the Business Times is honoring standout leaders under 40 years old making a major impact on the Bay Area’s economy, community and culture by employing innovation, business and technical acumen and a lot of hard work.” — Lindsay Riddell, Reporter – San Francisco Business Times

Revolution Foods has reached a level of success that is unprecedented in the ICA Portfolio. Their story is a daily reminder that instills confidence in our entrepreneurs, proving that your business can have a significantly positive impact on the inner city as it grows in size and scale. We are proud to share the news that Revolution Foods CEO & Co-Founder, Kristin Richmond, has been selected to receive one of the 2012 Emerging Leaders Awards for the San Francisco Business Times’ ’40 Under 40′ awards event.

By leading with their value system, combined with a strong commitment to their employees, we expect that Revolution Foods will continue to create quality inner city jobs as they expand.

“Join the San Francisco Business Times for their 1st annual ’40 Under 40′ awards event as they honor the 2012 class of honorees. These outstanding CEOs, entrepreneurs and top executives are making a difference in the local business community and will continue to do so well into the future. Come meet the class of our region’s most promising young talent.”

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2012
Levi’s Plaza Atrium – 115 Battery Street, San Francisco
5:30PM – 8:30PM – $125 per ticket or $1500 for a group of 10 tickets
Register at: http://www.sanfranciscobusinesstimes.com/event/37501
For more information on this event, please call Jacquie Bischoff at (415)288-4972 or email at jbischoff@bizjournals.com

Back in September of 2011, ICA ran a campaign to recruit new entrepreneurs into the ICA Portfolio. We added over 100 new small businesses to our network, received dozens of applications and tailored our selection to 3 innovative, high-impact entrepreneurs. This bodes well for the Bay Area, as the growth of these small businesses stands to make a positive impact on creating good jobs for the residents that need them most.

Over the coming days, we’ll describe more details about our selection process, what ICA looks for in an ideal candidate, announce each of the three new companies, and tell you the stories regarding their engagement with ICA.

Stay tuned in to these announcements, because the ecosystem of support that we all build around these companies will be critical to their growth. Thank you for continued support of ICA.

Cheers,
The ICA Team

Cook! is young local company dedicated to bringing wholesome, delicious gourmet meals delivered to your home. Cook! makes simple meal kits that can be prepared in 20 minutes.

Cook! offers different meal plans including a detox program as well as gluten and dairy free meals.  The menu is filled with whole foods like quinoa, and veggies from – even organic grilled turkey breast and miso grilled salmon with soba noodles.

How does it work?

First, you select the Meal Plan that best suits your needs. Then, the meals arrive in a kit at your doorstep.  Finally, you take it home and cook up a gourmet feast in 20 minutes or less. Each kit contains pre-portioned, individually packaged ingredients and step-by-step cooking instructions. You simply follow along as you add each pre-measured ingredient. It’s like being an organic gourmet chef.  Visit their website at: www.cooksf.com

The Secret Force Behind Oakland’s Rise as an Artisanal-Food Incubator.      — By James O’Brien

“A small non-profit is turning Blue Bottle-like companies into the healthy heartbeat of Oakland”

For several years now, Oakland restaurateurs have been setting tables in great spaces all over town. But lately, artisan food manufacturers have also been clustering to the city like granola in honey.  Numi Tea and Blue Bottle Coffee were among the first, and recent arrivals include Hodo Soy Beanery, which is pushing fresh tofu, and Linden Street Brewery, which is helping to reanimate the Embarcadero. Many of these food-focused companies have been guided to profitability by a little-known nonprofit called Inner City Advisors (ICA).

ICA links promising small businesses on the verge of growth with grade-A local mentors, like former Scharffen Berger COO Jim Harris and several Clif Bar execs—people who have “been there, done that,” as ICA’s executive director, Jose Corona, puts it. The nonprofit’s portfolio includes software firms and toolmakers, but it’s increasingly dominated by dynamic food busi­nesses, such as Blue Bottle, Numi, Brown Sugar Kitchen, BTTR (pronounced “better”) Ventures, which grows mush­rooms, and Premier Organics, a maker of nut butters.

“They have a crystal ball for small businesses,” says Santiago Cuenca-Romero, president of Premier Organics. With ICA’s assistance, the company made key decisions, including which of its four founders should fill which leadership roles, and whether to develop a private label. Since hooking up with ICA, Premier Organics has added 20 new employees, raised its revenues above $3 million, and, after years in West Oakland, taken over part of the vacated Mother’s Cookies plant in East Oakland. In fact, the best news about ICA businesses is that in a city with 16 percent unemployment, they’re creating jobs in areas where they’re needed the most, such as East Oakland and over on the Emeryville border.

This year, in an environment where it’s nearly impossible for small businesses to pry loans out of banks, ICA is developing its own debt-equity fund and hopes to begin lending soon. For now, all ICA asks—insists on, really—is that the companies it helps agree to give something back to the community. That mandate hasn’t been a problem, says Corona. “We have some companies whose sole drive is to beautify their neighborhood—to plant trees, do volunteer days, or reinvest in some way.” That’s 21st-century Oakland for you: Even its food industry is cool.

To see the article on the San Francisco Magazine website, visit: http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/culinary-cabal

We are pleased to welcome these new companies to the ICA Portfolio!  

• Brown Sugar Kitchen
• Bttr Ventures
• D-Unique Tools
• Clinica la Luna e el Sol
• Prather Ranch Meat Co.

It’s a common lament among small companies: The amount and type of financing entrepreneurs are able to raise seldom match what they actually need.

That’s especially true for startups that may not be quite ready to put a multimillion-dollar venture capital investment to work. “Our companies are looking for $500,000 to $1.5 million,” says Jose Corona, executive director of Inner City Advisors, an Oakland (Calif.) nonprofit that helps prepare small companies to win equity investments. “But funds are making minimum investments of $2 million to $3 million.” Other small companies would prefer debt, but in the current credit environment, they’re considering selling equity.

Now Corona and two other advocates for inner-city and minority-owned companies are tackling that problem. In a terrible fund-raising climate, they want to launch investment vehicles that will provide small amounts of early-stage equity, later-stage financing, and, in some cases, debt. “These funds will help companies get the financing that is right for them and not get pigeonholed by the first people who are interested,” says Deborah Shufrin, a senior vice-president at the nonprofit Initiative for a Competitive Inner City in Boston, which works to promote inner-city economic growth.

Corona aims to raise $25 million. Eugene Todd, a former investment banker, has a target of $40 million. Both will make initial investments of $500,000 to $1.5 million, and both will rely on nonprofits to help them find high-growth entrepreneurs. Corona’s fund will work with Inner City Advisors, while Todd is partnering with Cleveland’s JumpStart. JumpStart mentors about 80 companies, most of them technology-related, but CEO Ray Leach says that only 8 to 10 of them will typically find financing in a year. That leaves plenty of promising candidates for Todd’s fund, like Cleveland’s M.O.M. Tools, developer of a manfacturing tool that lasts six times as long as its competitors’. “They’re in the process of raising capital,” Leach says, “and they’ve struggled.”

Tim Ferguson, founder of Next Street Financial, a Roxbury (Mass.) financial advisory firm, is taking a different approach with his $100 million fund, which will provide slightly larger companies with $2 million to $5 million in debt-based financing. “In this particular space, there’s less interest in equity because people don’t want to give up control,” Ferguson says. Next Street will manage Ferguson’s fund and advise its portfolio companies.

Todd is looking to large banks to invest in his fund. Because getting that money can involve up to a year of due diligence, he’s also approaching local and regional banks and corporations “who know us, think this is a good thing, and have seen us in the community.” Todd has raised $7 million and will begin investing once he reaches $10 million–by March, he hopes. Corona is first approaching high-net-worth individuals and may later pitch to pension funds, banks, and foundations.

Working against them all is the perception that funds backing a social good–in this case, boosting inner-city and minority-owned companies with the potential to create jobs–aren’t profit-focused. Explains Corona: “Once you say you’re a social fund, everyone jumps into thinking you’re wasting their money.” Instead, “We’re telling [investors] we’re looking at inner-city companies as an emerging asset class. It won’t be market-rate, but we’ll give a good return on investment and a great social return.”